Hero
by Viking Eagle
Summary: "The world could always use more heroes." With one punch and seven words, Brian finally had a sense of purpose in his life, far more then he had found in 15 years of being just another person. Leaving his home behind for the road, he dedicates himself to becoming worthy of the title of hero, no matter the cost. Only time will tell if the world will call him a hero after it all.
1. Chapter 1: Courier

**Chapter 1: Courier**

* * *

The rain beat down heavy on Nash and Olafsen, washing the blood from their recent wounds to the concrete of the roof. Clutching his arm, Nash advanced toward his brother's killer, firing one more shot as he clamored to retrieve his weapon, the pulse fire burning through his hand. Olafsen let loose a scream from the bottom of his lungs only to be swiftly silenced by Nash's boot, reducing the sounds of pain to near silent retches as the cries fail to escape his throat. Nash could have watched him suffer like that for hours, just like his brother had as he choked on the blood that Olafsen's knife had filled his lungs with, but the S.W.A.T. team would be on the roof soon to arrest the murderer, and Nash did not trust the law to give the scum what he deserved. Nash raised his gun, aiming between the eyes of the mortified Olafsen, ready to enact his own justice.

"James, stop!" Sanchez implored, exhausted from fifteen floors of chase; "You've already won, there's no need to take this any further!"

Nash was unmoved, "No, Jessica, he's still breathing. I haven't won yet."

They had been partners since the day she had been promoted to detective three years ago, but Sanchez had never seen him with such hatred in his eyes before, every fiber of his being was telling him to pull the trigger.

"Damn it, James, you're a cop! I know he was your brother, but you need to uphold the law and bring him to justice!"

The S.W.A.T. team would be with them in mere seconds and Nash knew Sanchez had just been stalling for time, his conflicting emotions and the biting cold leaving his teeth unsure whether to grit or chatter.  
Soaking wet and freezing yet refusing to let the cold shake his resolve, he makes his decision, "I-

 ***Bing Bong!*** The alarm signaled a new arrival to the all but deserted station as they attempted to fit their bicycle through the narrow doorway.  
 _"Every damn time…_ " Douglas angrily muttered below his breath, even if he was on the clock, he was already a full season behind.  
The very picture of the public's distrust of the government's ability to hire, Douglas was overweight, undertall, lacking most of his hair and any form of drive in his work. It was not as if his attention was required, September had barely begun and vacationers from both sides of the border had already ceased to flow in and out since the end of Summer break. Any coming over to work either lived in on-the-job housing by now or were important enough to fly between nations on steel wings. He never understood the point of him being there anyway, the borders had been more or less open nationwide ever since the end of the Crisis and the process was more or less automated, all he ever did was push a button and the system confirmed everything for him. " _So who would be passing through now_?", he pondered. Whoever it was, Douglas scarcely reacted to migrant as they approached his station, skipping his holovid back a few seconds, not moving his eyes an inch from it.

Without so much as a glance from his screen, Douglas began his standard greeting, "Tourist or Worker?"

"Worker." replied a young voice, eager and bursting with life, despite the telltale sounds of exhaustion.

With no hesitation the traveler scanned his identification as the uncharacteristically intrigued Douglas reviews it:

Dailor

Brian C.

Birthplace: Oakland, California, United States

Occupation: Package Courier

Employer: Navarro Express

Sex: M

Age: 15

Date of Birth: December 7, 2060

Reason for Visit: Work Order (See More)

Looking from the picture on the screen to the boy in the blue hoodie standing in front of him, leaning on a bicycle put well through its paces, Douglas could barely believe they were the same person. The picture was taken almost a year ago, coinciding with his employment, and physically little had changed: A slim build befitting of a messenger, fair light brown hair of medium length, short stature even for his age, and a boy's face slowly but surely becoming a man's. The only true change were his eyes, in the photo there was a stillness in them, something far deeper than simple boredom and, sorrowfully, something all too common. They were eyes of despair, the gaze of someone who saw no future ahead of them, facing only a dead end on the road of life, but now, those eyes were flaring, radiant with hope, blue windows to a soul on fire. Dirty and fatigued as he was, Brian had not one shred of melancholy upon his face, forever changed by five minutes of his life.

Douglas was flabbergasted by Brian's presence here all by his lonesome, it was over five hundred miles between Oakland and the border, and judging by his washed-out appearance, he had journeyed solely on his two wheels and youthful vigor. Even if it wasn't a straight path to this destination, there were few left in this world who would even attempt such a thing, much less alone. The real question was why, what possessed this boy to come this far? If he was running from someone, there were safer and closer places north of the border, much the same if it was purely for profit. Legally, everything was in order given he was there on official business, even considering his age and lack of education, but Douglas pondered contacting the boy's company or the authorities, just in case, then he considered how long that would take and the fact that this was the season finale…

"Have a safe visit.", Douglas said with more worry and sincerity than usual, though still far below what one would expect, as he allowed the courier through with the push of a button.

With a smirk and near silent chuckle of undetected sarcasm, Brian pushed his bike awkwardly through the doorway, thanking the lethargic guard as he exits, his farewell unnoticed as the decision is made.

"I'm sorry Jessica, but this is the only justice I believe in now."

With a gunshot and the sting of overly dramatic music, Brian closed the door behind him, still unsure why they wouldn't have a bike lane, especially since this was a relatively new station, but considering these were the same people who let Douglas through the hiring process, common sense was clearly alien to them.

 ** _..._**

He had never been to Mexico before, but according to his peers and the Californian Education System, his Spanish was fluent enough to make his way through without much trouble and a brief tinge of pain as he mounted his bicycle reminded him that he had enough skill and confidence should there be trouble. If a solid kick to the ribs lingered for this long, he didn't envy what a wrench to the kneecaps must feel like by now.

" _It's what he deserved anyway_ ", Brian justified within his mind, " _Morality aside, he should have at least brought a knife or something_."

It was just one of the risks of being a courier, being alone en route to your destination means vulnerable in the eyes of the average street thug. When he first sought employment as nothing more than a reason to get up in the morning two summers ago, he had always dreaded such an encounter, but now he relished every opportunity for such a confrontation. If one punch made him rise this high, he delighted at what more conflict would make of him. The true man's path to becoming a hero the world needs; biting the pain, he continued riding on it.

Today that path led him to Tijuana on a delivery, hoping to escape any incidents with the law after his latest encounter with the wrong side of it, preferring not to risk the chance of being sent back home by force. He had done the same many times over the last few months across California, in his mind it was a lucky thing that trouble had seemed to find him, but the mileage was beginning to weigh heavily on his shoulders. He cared little for politics, but he understood the laws of California well enough to survive on his own there, exploiting the government's leniency on the homeless as a free and easy way to find food and shelter. It's not as if he was doing anything illegal, given his situation and rate of pay, he did legally qualify as a below the line and even then, he felt the need to earn his keep. He could live on charity alone if he wished to, but of course, that wouldn't be very heroic of him.

The streets were still grey, the sky was still blue, the dirt was still brown, and the autumn wind was still harsh against his face, but Mexico was not California; free room and board was not open to foreigners like it was in his home state. To Brian, this was just another challenge, a new way to test himself, and he delighted at the chance. Pedaling onward through the streets of Tijuana, he was surprised to note how similar it all looked to him, as if he had not stepped one foot from California. This disappointed him slightly, dreams of heroism and desire for conflict aside, he had hoped for new experiences, whatever their form, to offer him a means to better himself. He could only hope that he was judging too quickly and that opportunities would present themselves. Even if things weren't very different from his home state, at least that meant an abundance of chances to prove himself against the criminal element, though the seemingly pleasant nature of the streets did not bode well for that.

Paseo de Los Héroes, Road of the Heroes - There wasn't a more fitting road for him to travel on. Statues of heroes from ages gone dotted the way, not that Brian could recognize the majority of them. Still riding on, he wondered if they had any monuments to Overwatch still standing.

" _Probably tore 'em down_ ," His pessimism told him, "j _ust like the ones back in the States._ "

It was a sad state of affairs, in his opinion, that cities had been demolishing those monuments.

" _Even if they did half of what people say, they saved the world, and_ nothing'll _change that_."

In any case, he was here to work, payment by delivery, he could go sightseeing on his own time.

He had spent mere minutes traveling from the border before he finally reached his destination, just another house in the suburbs, built not long after the crisis and not cleaned since then by the look of it's cracked and fading paint, with an address he was already forgetting. Retrieving the delivery for a Mr. Ramirez from his pack, his imagination began to run red as it often had in recent days.

" _Pretty light for a box this big…Feels like a lot of foam too…_ Place _looks kind of trashy…Sound like it could be a fake name… Hmm, reverses the stereotype, but I guess it's still possible…_ "

Cartels and Gangs almost exclusively use their own couriers when smuggling their drugs, domestic and international, but it wasn't unheard of for small time, far less intelligent criminals to use legitimate services for deliveries to more distant contacts. He recalled a story from a coworker on one of the rare occasions he socialized with them that one of their fellow couriers was arrested after being caught with a package full of Crystal Meth meant for an amateur chemist's clients across the Nevada Border. Brian figured that it was just another lie, a tale created for the sake a few moments of attention, but now a part of him hoped it was true; stopping a drug operation, even one that small, would be quite the act of heroism.

Ringing the doorbell, Brian prepared himself should things go wrong as he had hoped; positioning to give himself the best view possible of the interior and a superior angle of attack. Answering the door with the haste of a tortoise, Ramirez appeared utterly average; early to mid-thirties, slightly chubby, dressed very plain in black shorts & a lightly sweat-stained red shirt, and interrupted in the middle of shaving judging by his uneven five o'clock shadow.

"Yeah, what is it?" he asked, noticeably surprised that anyone was at his door, much less someone with such comparatively pale skin.

Brian was not set at ease, it would be unwise, even unfair in his mind, to assume Ramirez wasn't capable of wrongdoing simply because he looked harmless, people had made the same mistake about him in the past.

"Package for a Mr. Ramirez.", Brian answered, stealthily casting his gaze into the home of Ramirez, wishing to see even the slightest sign of misdeed.

"Oh, already? Huh…well, where do I sign?" Ramirez responded with pleasant surprise, Brian's disappointment going undetected, as he saw not a single mark of suspicion, outside of a poor taste in decor.

Hiding his dissatisfaction, Brian replied with professionalism in its place, "Here.", as he pulled up a hologram screen through his phone's app.

Ramirez began to sign, the length of the process telling Brian this was a rare event for him, as he began to sing the courier's praises.

"Usually, it takes a day or two before I get packages all the way from San Diego, but here you are already! Hell, I only just got the message from my sister about an hour ago! Did you really come all the way, just for this?" Brian felt the sharp sting of guilt, there was no deceit in his words. He still wasn't used to being spoken highly of, much less believing such words, and he had done nothing but search for the slightest hint of anything wrong with the man.

"Oh, uh…Yeah," He awkwardly accepted his thanks, "kind of figured it'd be a good excuse to visit Mexico."

"Well, if you're willing to bike all that way, you definitely deserve the trip."

"Uh, not to probe or anything, but can I ask what's in the box?" Brian wouldn't let that sting cloud his judgment, kind words proved nothing; he had to be absolutely sure. "I mean, not to trying to accuse you or anything, I was just curious is all since it looks like it means a lot to you." Brian continues, secretly sliding his foot into the doorway.

Perplexed by the question, Ramirez answered regardless, "Oh, it's a painting my sister did, it's just a hobby of hers, but she likes to send everyone in the family a copy."  
Opening the box to reveal his sister's painting, Brian could see why her artistic pursuits remained just a hobby. He never understood why some people considered a canvas of multi-colored scribbles and swirls as art.  
"Yeah, I know," says Ramirez, reading Brian's distaste, "but she's family. You understand, right?"  
"…Right." There was no way for Ramirez to know how deep of a cut that was and that made it even deeper.  
"I'm just glad she's following her dreams, slow as that's going for her, but I'm even more glad that she moved out of Dorado."

Brian's interest was piqued.

"Why, something happen? I don't watch the news much."

"Oh, nothing that major, at least not recently, gang violence has just been on the rise there. Those Los Muertos thugs are still spreading across the whole country, but it's been horrible in Veracruz, according to the news at least. There was a big arms deal bust back in March, some vigilante's work apparently, but that was the last big news I've heard. Still, that's just what makes the headlines, who knows what else could be going on. " Ramirez explained, oblivious to the promises of heroism that Brian extracted from his words.

Getting what he came for, Brian bid a heartfelt farewell and rode for the nearest Navarro Express outpost. Dorado was well over a week away by bicycle and Brian was only human, he would have to ride a roundabout path to his new objective if he did not want to starve to death or drive himself to madness from lack of sleep and he did not intend to waste a single second.

He should have been overjoyed, yet there was a feeling gnawing at his heart as he left the house of cracked white paint, something in his soul that was disgusted by his actions. He didn't have a single justifiable reason to silently accuse Ramirez as he did, only a hope that he was guilty in order to give him an outlet for his own lust for glory.

" _It's not like it was for the wrong reasons_ ," He tried to convince himself, " _he could have easily been a bad guy, there's no way I could have known for sure_."

That was exactly the problem and he knew it, there was no way he could be sure, he had only denied Ramirez the benefit of the doubt for his own sake. There was nothing heroic about treating everyone like a criminal, just for a chance to add to his own fame and self-satisfaction. He wanted to be a hero, he needed to be a hero, not just call himself one.

His feelings of doubt over his judgment were soon conquered by his hopes, however; now that he had a clear destination ahead of him, he would not have to look for excuses like he had before if the news was correct. Even if there was nothing in Dorado for him, it was over two thousand miles worth of road, that alone was a worthy trial in and of itself. For all the trouble seeking he had done up to this point, he never had encountered any of Los Muertos before, despite their growing presence in California. Whether it was due to a focus on far bigger scores than something as small time as mugging a courier or if he was simply what he considered unlucky, he could not know, but if all went as he desired, they would not be able to keep their attention off him.

After less than twenty minutes of vigorous cycling, Brian arrived at the outpost, eager for a new assignment to bring him closer to his goal of Dorado. It was fortunate for him how far Navarro Express had expanded into Mexico; it gave him the means to survive wherever he may roam, despite his mediocre at best pay. It was amazing how well the legend behind the company alone was enough to make it expand into the largest delivery service on the West Coast of the entire North American continent in only thirty years. Before, he had assumed that it was nothing but a myth or at the very least a truth stretched to the point of deceit, but his recent travels and gradually waning cynicism made it seem more feasible by the minute.

According to the company, they were founded thirty years ago when the Omnic Crisis had found its way to the United States. With all Internet and telephone communication in the area down due to omnic cyberattacks, the only warning the many townships of Mendocino County received were from a lone rider from the town of Navarro. A modern-day Paul Revere by the name of Chris Dornan, who alerted thousands of his fellow Californians of the encroaching metal horde, including the advancing 1st Marine Division. While his home of Navarro and many other towns in between had been lost, Dornan had saved thousands of lives and gave the Marines a foothold in the area thanks to the intelligence he provided on the movements of the mechanical menace. Shortly afterward, Dornan continued to work as a simple courier as the area still lacked a more convenient method of communications; soon creating his own de facto delivery company, using his tale as a way to drum up business. Slowly but surely, Navarro Express spread throughout California and with the end of the Crisis, across much of the US and now Mexico, with Dornan still as it's CEO, even with the perpetual controversy of supposed discrimination against omnic applicants.

Turning his attention from corporate propaganda back to the task at hand, he scanned his worker's card into the terminal and began browsing the available deliveries. Yet another fortunate aspect of his employment was the majority of outposts being fully automated, lessening the chance that anyone would try to send him back home. He had no intention of returning until he found what he was looking for, he had made that clear to them. Judging by the fact that his card still worked, and his direct deposits had not ceased, they either failed or did not even bother to try and convince Navarro to fire him with the intent of forcing him to return home, likely the latter if Brian's opinion of his parents was accurate. He made sure to mention in his note that a lack of steady income would not bring him back, it would just be one more trial for him to overcome; he believed that, he was sure his brother believed that, the question was if his parents did.

Forcing the thoughts of home from his mind, he made his selection, choosing the furthest location available in the vague direction of Dorado, the city of Mexicali, eleven hours away. As always, he did not even bother to check what the pay would be, the miles were worth far more than the dollars to him. With a tap of the screen and the whirring of machinery, the package was expelled from the outpost and into Brian's hands. It was no different than the one he had just delivered to Ramirez, no different than most packages he'd carried, but holding it filled him with a new sense of zeal, it was his first step toward Dorado and, he hoped, toward destiny. He set back out on the road with an inextinguishable fervor, toying with the promise ahead of him.

" _I wonder where I'll sleep tonight_ …"


	2. Chapter 2: Push

**Chapter 2: Push**

* * *

" _One bag of flour…why is it always just one?" Alejandra wondered, "We always burn through the whole bag in less than a day. We should just buy a week's supply to save time. It's not like I'm a child anymore, these things are only twenty pounds and it's not that far from home, I don't know why Mom still treats me like a baby._ "

The October wind cut sharp across her nose and caused her braided twin-tails to flutter, reminding her how long it had been since that fateful day over ten months ago as she gazed down at the recently purchased twenty-pound bag of flour cradled in her right arm.

She remembered how helpless she had felt before the hero - The one she later learned was the infamous American vigilante, Soldier 76 - had decimated the local presence of Los Muertos and saved her life that night in March. Ever since that fateful encounter, she has been trying to guide herself down the path of heroism and the pursuit of justice, but she had to admit that she could use an even stronger push. Through all the years before that night, Los Muertos had plagued the streets, flooding them with drugs and terrorizing the common man despite their supposed goal of rebelling against the callously blind rich. Gang violence had become a constant factor and fear had become a constant feeling for the people of Dorado. With the town being just near enough the major tourist centers of Veracruz to have considerable wealth, yet far enough away to fly under the radar of the often overworked authorities of the surrounding municipalities, it made a delectable sight to the opportunistic Los Muertos, who had begun their corruption of the city almost a decade ago.

Developing in such a volatile environment had taken its toll on Alejandra, she had been forced to adapt by becoming timid in the face of evil in the hopes it would be sated by the signs of fear, just as many of her peers had before her. However, the tales her mother told her, of the peerless warriors of the world known as Overwatch, kept her from falling into absolute despair; a light shining in darkness, no matter how faint. It was not a false hope in the sudden salvation from a knight in shining armor, ironic as that eventually was. Rather, it was the belief in a sort of divinity of man, a way of life beyond the base and cruel nature of scum such as skull emblazoned desperados that stalked her home and toward a world without pettiness and hatred.

Despite this deep conviction, the spiritual sickness had already taken hold and sapped her dry of resolve, leaving her a quaking husk counted as blessed for avoiding the brunt of the scum's cruelty. No matter how much she had cursed her own name after the countless failures of heart, she still had yet to conquer herself; but after that night she had sworn to better herself, despite herself. Though hardly an underachiever before, she pressed herself even harder in the pursuit of education, physical education in particular. The promise of a brighter future kept her on the path, despite the conflict of seven hours of schooling and the remaining six hours of her day divided between study and assisting her mother at the family bakery, leaving little room for her own pursuits, heroic or otherwise.

Mild as the enjoyment she derived from her daily task of going to the general store gave her, as opposed to mindlessly kneading and shaping dough in the kitchen, she knew she could be doing infinitely more to better herself. Even something as insignificant as the added weight of another bag of flour was an improvement to her current rate of progression. Small as the steps she was taking were, she still considered them worth far more than what granted her the title of hero in the Russian's eyes. Despicable as she was, and guilty of far more than Alejandra could have imagined, giving away Sombra's location to the towering woman of the Motherland was not an act she considered heroic.

" _It's not like it was wrong to snitch on Sombra, she is a criminal after all."_ Alejandra dwelled on within her mind _, "Still, doesn't feel good to rat someone out like that, even a Los Muertos, and at least she actually paid for her bread._ "

Only three blocks from the bakery that doubles as her home, Alejandra passed through an all-too-familiar passageway. She had little choice in the mater, but far less to fear since the day that kept it in her memory.

" _They may be in jail now, but it's not like that changes anything. It doesn't matter how many of them get locked up, I have to keep working until I'm the one doing the locking_."

The faint scent of toasted cocoles crept through the air and into her nostrils, returning her to the present. "Mom's still baking fresh ones? It's almost Seven, I didn't think we'd be that bu-"

"Hey, bread bitch!", shouts an all too familiar and all too enraged voice from behind.

Near paralyzed by fear, Alejandra struggles to force her neck to turn back for her to see an impossible truth: Inigo was free from prison, and judging by the anger written on his face and two accompanying Los Muertos thugs - the most brutish of them visibly armed with a bike chain -, this meeting was not one of happenstance. This terrifying sight triggered a memory back to the forefront of her mind, last week's news report of a prison break that freed a collection of Los Muertos' recently imprisoned ringleaders and their many subordinates, such as the three storming toward her now. It had been ten months since the day Alejandra had hoped would be the last time they would meet, but his hardened expression and the knowledge that he had spent his eighteenth birthday caged made it clear that this was about far more than just a refusal to share in his hatred and a half-empty coin purse. Before she could manage to form even a single word in her panic, Inigo explains himself as he makes his menacing approach.

"We're gonna be all ears and you'll be all mouth, starting now!"

His is demand punctuated by the spring of a switchblade and a sharp gasp of terror escaping Alejandra's lips.

Horrified beyond belief, her eyes darted between the three malefactors at the speed of terror as she made trembling backward steps toward home, considering her options. She had barely seconds to think as the quickest of the ill-intentioned trio, a gaunt, sickly looking boy with the neck of a vulture and no older than sixteen; was but mere feet from restraining her. As her heart and mind raced in the absolute dread of the situation, an impulse triggered within her, the basic instinct of fight or flight, she needed only to choose. The two paths available to her, to follow the tendencies built up over thirteen years or the new road of the hero, wrenched at her mind within those few seconds of the Vulture decent upon her. To the shock of all those in audience, herself included, she defied the instincts of cowardice that had built within her over her thirteen years on this earth and swung at her aggressor with the bag of flour, the weight providing far more difficulty then she was expecting. The vulture proved to be nimble as he dodged the swift, but clumsy attack that came within inches of striking his chin. Still in thoughtless dismay, she swung again, only to be stopped halfway through her strike by the infuriated grip of Inigo and the strength that soon followed behind it forces Alejandra to the wall, still clutching the bag in desperation.

With a blinding glint of light reflecting from the blade invading Alejandra's eye, Inigo began his questioning proper.

"Now, Ale, I want everything you know about the piece of shit whitey and everything you told him then maybe I won't gut you!"

Equally confused as she was terrified, Alejandra responded with truth stuttered by fear.

"W-what are you talking about, I don't know anything about him, he just showed up, that's a-!"

A sharp pain ran up her leg as the knife penetrated the bag and the tip found its way into her thigh, barely more than a millimeter through the skin, just enough to touch muscle; the sting of the flour mixing with blood adding to a pain she had never experienced before as she let out an unheard scream into the silencing palm of Inigo.

"Do you think I'm some kind of retard!? That cracker didn't jump us until after you showed up, took a grenade for you, and bothered to take your coin back! The only way he would've known about that is if he was watching you, so cough it up!"

As the now spit covered palm was pulled back from her mouth, Alejandra's bewildered mind shifted into overdrive.

" _What the hell am I supposed to say?! He won't believe the truth and there's no way I can lie well enough to give him what he wants. I'm dead if I try to scream and it's not like Mom would even hear me from here and anyone who could wouldn't be stupid enough to try and help anyway. Lying's the most I can do now, but what can I say?_ "

The setting sun and the shadow cast by Inigo's looming stature illuminated the glowing tattoos that proved his allegiance as Alejandra's continued silence expended his patience.

"God damn it, Ale, we don't have all night and you want to keep breathing! Tell us now or my friends and I are gonna burn your house down while you look on bleeding into a gutter!"

Friends; that word alone was enough to set a spark inside her brain that set off a wildfire of thoughts that lit the way to safety, the two of them had one distinguished mutual friend and there was no chance he hadn't heard the news of her encounter with the Slavic soldier and almost certainly had more than a few follow up questions. That was her ticket out, all the answers to Inigo's questions all tied up in one convenient package, all she had to do was start twisting the truth.

"Okay...I'll talk…", she dragged her words to give herself crucial fractions of seconds more to polish her lies.

"Spill it!", demanded a still incensed, but noticeably self-satisfied Inigo as he loosened his grasp and released Alejandra's back from the wall as she begins.

"He was after Sombra, probably all of you guys really, but mainly her for whatever reason. I wasn't lying when I said he just showed up, I think he was following me hoping I'd lead him to her or something, but must have jumped you after our...meeting thinking it'd be a faster way."

Doubting that would be enough to sate Inigo's curiosity, she stopped for but a few seconds to wait for his response while she spins more half-truth within her mind. Predictably, Inigo's grip tightens again as he shouts more questions.

"Keep going! Why'd he bother to save you!?"

Offended at what his choice of words implied, she continued.

"Because he had basic human decency...and because he wanted a favor."

Using the same strategy as before, Inigo eventually broke the silence after his lack of comprehension forces his next question.

"What kind of favor!?"

"He wanted to know where Sombra was and...well...I did owe him...She must have had dirt on him or he just wanted dirt on someone else since nothing happened to her...at least as far I know."

A blunt pain spread across her back as she was forced to the wall once again.

"So you sold us out, eh!?"

Despite this being an outcome she foresaw, Alejandra was still stricken with fright and replied with quivering lips.

"N-no! I knew she could handle him and it's not like she would have been alone, right!? B-besides, what choice did I have!? I saw what he did to you, I didn't want to risk pissing him off!"

Her attempts to play down her willingness to aid the vigilante went unnoticed as the knife is raised to her throat.

" Yeah, well that's not the only time you ratted us out is it!? I heard about you getting visited by that eraser headed muscle cunt, what did she want!?"

Her cold sweat hits the blade as Alejandra pulls a well-seasoned piece of paranoia from history and serves it with the truth.

"...She wanted to know where Sombra was too…I've read about what Russians are like, I didn't want my head nailed to a door, I had no choice!"

Pulling the knife back, Inigo mulled over her panicked words as his cohorts rejoined him and wait for his response, having grown bored of their task of keeping watch for bystanders. Alejandra, naturally, observed her aggressor's face closely, hoping her falsehoods and half-truths had spared her of the blade.

"So...You ratted us out twice just because you were more scared of them then you were of us?... Alright, I see what the problem is."

Looking to his lackeys, the Vulture and the hulking Brute, he gave his command.

"Hold her to the wall and make sure she can't squirm!"

Horror coursed through Alejandra's body faster than ever as she realized her simple, fatal mistake; in her haste to be believed in order to escape the edge of the blade, she had failed to free herself of the burden of guilt in their eyes and instead succeed in implicating herself of far more acts of defiance to her city's captors. As Inigo's hand covered her mouth once again and the lowlifes' combined strength kept her from moving even a muscle, she could only close her eyes and silently curse herself for her profound ignorance.

Eyes shut tight and Inigo's strength not allowing her even open her lips for a bite in retribution, the near-inaudible sounds of the wretch's slowly widening grin the only sensation she could feel as her body went numb from the fear.

"Gonna carve a skull into your skull! Maybe then you'll remember how scary we are every time you see a mirror!"

Inigo's intentions were made redundantly clear while Alejandra tried desperately to ignore them, focusing on any other sound, hoping to take her thoughts away from the imminent, infernal pain. The indifferent chirping of birds, the buzz of street lights switched on with the dusk, the distant clicking of the pawls of a bicycle on the move, the faint bustle of people in their homes ignorant to the wickedness outside; none were enough to remove the advancing steel from her mind. The seconds felt like hours as she failed to overpower the criminals by even an inch or so much as crack her eyes open as the lawbreaker's knife grows ever closer, yet in the time that felt almost frozen, she had noticed that there was something else growing nearer, the sounds of the bicycle. The sounds of her could-be savior grew ever closer as the fires of hope reignited within her soul as she began to reopen her eyes only to reflexively shut them again as fresh blood invaded them and an ear piercing scream rang in her ears as she fell to the ground, the force pinning her to the wall suddenly withdrawn.

Staggering to her hands and knees, she swiftly wiped the crimson spray from her face to discover its cause. The rider had made a leaping crash into the criminals and in this attack, Inigo's blade had penetrated his cheek and, judging by his newfound speech impediment as he instinctively tried to scream some of the more colorful words of the Spanish language while writhing in pain, into his tongue. Studying the rest of the scene, she notes that the Vulture had taken his place with on the ground alongside his master, clutching a head caught between speeding tire and brick, before turning her attention to the bicycle itself. Worn from the road and adorned with various well-stocked packs, one of which had fallen open to reveal it's contents of Chef Vortivask brand soup cans, but most surprisingly, with almost no signs of damage from the crash, only the slightest dents and chips upon its matted blue paint. Quickly discovering the stamp of its maker, Alejandra could see they were worthy of the name Invincible. However, the bike was of little worth compared to its rider, another hero come to her rescue. Alejandra was not sure what she had done to be worthy of one guardian angel, let alone two, and her search for the second lasted mere moments as he too reeled back from the shock of the blow.

Alejandra could scarcely believe the sight in front of her, not only was her newest guardian angel another American, judging by his skin tone and taste in clothing, but he could not have been more than a year or two older than her. Flabbergasted at the prospect of someone her age, let alone a foreigner, that was willing to stand against not just a lone Los Muerto, but a trio of them, she could only stare at him voiceless as he too looked over what his ambush had wrought. For a fleeting moment, the two locked eyes and Alejandra soon understood his courage, his were eyes full of purpose and confidence and while fear still lingered within, it did not control even a single muscle of his body. They were eyes befitting a guardian angel, beautiful and powerful. Suddenly, the hero broke their shared gaze and promptly adopted a combat stance as a confused Alejandra followed his sight to see the Brute recovering from a mere glancing blow.

Following her instincts, Alejandra jumped from the brigand, the pain of the knife's mark coursing through once again as she does, and toward the rider. Her back to the wall once again and still on the ground, she found herself unable to cope with the pain enough to even stand, much less flee further. Anger written on his face, the brute retrieved his cheaply acquired and somewhat clumsy, yet effective weapon and prepared for revenge. Afraid for the life of her savior, she looked back to see his confidence had not been shaken even by the scarcest margin as he faced his opponent. Witnessing this, Alejandra's fears for him began to dissipate and she was finally able to form proper thoughts in what had seemed like hours to her.

" _Wait...his confidence...his bicycle...the packs...He must have ridden here all the way from the border, maybe even further! He must be traveling alone, living off the land the whole way from America, judging by all those supplies...Someone like that, who could travel so far and survive...They won't lose...They can't lose…I can believe in that, can't I?...You won't lose...I believe in you...Angel Eyes_ …"


	3. Chapter 3: Angel Eyes

**Chapter 3: Angel Eyes**

It had been twenty-eight days since Brian had first crossed the border into Mexico, searching for trouble on the road to Dorado and hoping to find even more at his destination. As he stared down his opponent, the broad-shouldered desperado, roughly seventeen years of age and swinging a bike chain with cruel intent in his eyes; the courier was pleased that his hopes had been met with such haste. On the path that brought him here, his desire for strife to test him constantly conflicted with his need for his acts of heroism to remain as such, both in action and intent. The most he had found on his path here that he could justify the need for aggression was the occasional smash and grab and those had been surprisingly few and far between. From what he could piece together, Los Muertos had become far more clandestine in the recent months with the crusades of both lawmen and vigilantes, Soldier 76 spearheading this shift the times. Luckily for Brian, it seemed like their Dorado branch lacked any sort of subtlety, meaning he would lack any sort of regret for laying them low.

Despite the Brute's intimidating presence, he had yet to do anything more than swing a chain in the few seconds of calm as Brian looked on unphased and calculated silently.  
" _Afraid...They always talk big, but they're just as afraid as anyone else. Just gotta wait for him to do something stupid. Shouldn't take long_."  
Brian is proven correct as the silence is broken by the Brute's hollow bravado.  
"Time to die, you asshole wh-"  
With that mistake, Brian could not keep a smug grin from spreading across his face as he planted his left foot down and pulled a soup can from the pocket of his hoodie, throwing it at the thug with every ounce of his strength. His aim proved true as Chef Vortivask's finest collided with the criminal's nose, the sickening snap of iron meeting cartilage soon joined by muffled screams filling Brian's ears as he began to charge.

Swiftly entering arms reach of his opponent, he reaches deeper into his pocket to equip himself with his weapon of choice: a lightweight, yet surprisingly sturdy adjustable wrench. Blunt force in hand, his muscles tense as his right foot meets the ground to empower a mighty swing that sends chrome to bone with violent force. The horrified screams of the Brute echoed through the passage, telling all around of the fate of his now shattered kneecap. As the desperado tumbled forward in his pain on course to flatten his attacker, Brian's fighting instinct took hold as he began his next attack. Right leg still firmly in place, he twists his body one hundred eighty degrees to deliver a kick to the Brute's abdomen, sending him falling safely away from the courier. Descending brutally onto the back of his head, the Brute could barely cling to consciousness as Brian presses the attack once again. With a curb stomp direct to the nose, the overwhelming pain finally robbed the Brute of his mental faculties as Brian began to breathe heavily on relief. In all of five seconds, the battle was over and a near month of hard road had been made worthwhile.

Slowly, Brian began to retake control of his breathing, obeying the distant memories of what little training of martial arts he had been given. Even a century after it's years of infamy, Oakland was still far from the safest city in the United States. Gang violence, including the Los Muertos' attempts at expansion, was still a common thing in the city and the laws of California left martial arts the only cost-effective method of personal defense. As such, the eternal march of capitalism left a young Brian, or more accurately his parents, with an abundance of options to satisfy his excess of time at the tender age of six. In a decision likely inspired by its distance from their home, his training was in kickboxing. Unfortunately for him, that training lasted only a year and a half before it was cut short by his parents after he decided to employ it on one of his school's more aggressive bullies. Throughout the years, he did what he could to piece together his knowledge of the art for whatever the internet and now the road could teach him. Staring down at the bloodied face of his unconscious opponent, Brian felt confident in his findings.

Adrenaline slowly fading, the continued screams and moans of agony from the goon's ringleader reminded him that he was not alone. Looking back, the girl still pinned herself to the wall, visibly amazed by the courier's display of prowess. Studying her closely, he soon discovered the fresh wound in her leg, blood still flowing to the ground and staining what appeared to be a new pair of pants.  
" _Probably just another mugging_ ", his intuition told him, " _Don't know why they'd rob a kid, but then again, they are idiots_."  
The hypocrisy of giving her that title was not lost on him, given his own age. From what he could tell, she was likely thirteen, and recently thirteen at that. While the difference of their ages was only two years by his reckoning, the difference in their experience was night and day to him, but he had to admit that he didn't know how she had handled the three before he had interfered. In fact, he hadn't even seen her before his attack, he had only made an educated guess based on how the thugs had gathered on the wall. In any case, the air had been left dead long enough and even if he already made the only introduction that mattered to him, he thought it best to make it official.

"H-"  
Before he could even get a single syllable into his greeting, another challenge rang out for him.  
"You piece of shit whitey!" The Vulture shouted, finally recovered from the pain of skull bone hitting brick.  
Pulling a knife from his back pocket, his bravado continued.  
"I'm gonna gut you like a goddamn sheep!"  
As the Vulture takes an aggressive stance, Brian enters his own, wrench still firmly in hand, as he begins to formulate a strategy. Examining the knife, Brian recognized it as a Saca Tripas, its hook-like blade designed for the sole purpose of gutting sheep. By any definition of the word, Brian was no sheep, but the Vulture's stance told him warned him he held enough skill with the weapon to set the courier on edge.  
" _Have to wait for an opening, one good swipe and I'm dead_."

Keeping his mental focus, Brian simply waits for the Vulture to make his move, his strategy already decided. The blade of the Saca Tripas, more like that of a scythe than a knife, held a critical weakness inside of its own strength. It is designed to disembowel and disembowel alone, forcing its user to only take wide slashes at the stomach and throat to be an effective weapon. Thrusts made impossible by the blades design and overhead stabs difficult to make worthwhile, the Vulture had no choice in his method of attack.

Not even one full second passed before the Vulture lunged forward and made his attack. Just as the courier predicted, it was a violent slash aimed right for his stomach. Amazed by The Vulture's speed, he only just managed to dodge the fatal slash, even prepared as he was. Before this revelation, he had planned to wait for an opportunity to strike after timing the strikes he dodged with his own considerable agility. But with this deadly speed revealed, his focus was shattered and he was left without a plan.

Another slash came, and again Brian managed to just barely evade it while formulating his next plan.  
" _Don't think I can get an opening since he's this fast. Might be able to hit him with the wrench if I aim the throw just right. Won't have much to fight with if I miss, so I gotta make it count._ "  
Yet another slash, this time aimed for his throat, the steel managing to just barely meet his skin. While only a flesh wound, Brian's blood still flowed and his situation had yet to improve, he had to go on the offensive and soon.

Pleased by his letting of its blood, the Vulture slashed for Brian's throat once again. Leaping back almost six feet to dodge the savage attack, Brian hoped it was enough distance to safely make one of his own. As his opponents rushed to fill the gap he had just created, Brian was forced to make his move. With all his power, Brian threw his wrench for the Vulture's head, spinning it horizontally to ensure it found its mark. Even with this technique, the Vulture was still nimble enough to evade it as it impacted on the wall right above the head of the girl who instinctively had to let out a scream at her near injury.

Now defenseless against the edge of the blade, Brian began to visibly sweat in fear as the Vulture's grin widened.  
" _Ah shit, what now?_ ", thought the courier, only now realizing how far over his head he truly was.  
" _Guess I can still try for just a punch or kick to the sack, but I'm still worse off than before_."  
Another slash, another dodge; lacking the same degree of confidence as before, Brian leaves far more space than ever before as he searches his mind for a way to improve his position in this fight.

Without daring to make the fatal mistake of taking his eyes off his opponent, Brian scans his surroundings in search of anything that would give him the advantage. Only now did he realize how far backward they had both moved for the wall, over fifteen feet from where they started by Brian's reckoning. His wandering eye met his turned of bicycle, confirming what he already knew. Almost twenty feet from his grasp, nothing from it numerous pouches would be able to help him with the Vulture standing between them. Even the soup cans that now littered the street thanks to his previous plan were too far to bring him any salvation.

The cans may not have been his release for the danger he found himself in, but they soon led him to the true source of his release from the peril he faced. His mind soon returned to the mere minutes of the past that already felt like days in the incredible speed of his battle. As he successfully dodges the Saca Tripes once again, he quickly searches for the Brute's bike chain, still laying next to his defeated foe. Fallen far from the villain's hand after his defeat, it lay only a mere six feet from the would-be hero, Brian. While hardly a weapon he had mastered, it was the key to his victory, the links just thick enough to keep the blade from meeting flesh. The speed and precision of the Vulture's strikes now known to the courier after six attacks had failed to meet their mark, he could only hope that his estimation of his opponent's strength would prove accurate in his final bid for victory.

The distance was only achievable to him if he leaped past the Vulture, the danger was obvious to Brian, but he had no other plan if he wanted to survive. His confidence still wounded by his original failure in this fight, he returned his mind to his moment of glory almost five months ago, as he always had whenever his pride was damaged. He remembered the fear he felt that day as the gunfire rang out in the museum as he and Timmy could do nothing but cower behind a slab of rubble. It was not his fear that kept the memory in his mind, but the fear of the woman that dominated his thoughts every day since then, Tracer. She had tried to hide her dread behind a catchphrase and a false smile that Brian could easily see through, even when his young brother delighted at them. She had lived in combat for over seven years, and likely far more before her military career, yet terror still gripped her in the warzone the building meant to honor her and her comrades had become.

It was not a fear for her own life that had shaken her very soul, but the well being of the two brothers she had found by chance in the chaos. Brian could see it upon her face, as the thrill of battle gave way to dismay upon learning of their existence, but with her powers crippled by a malfunction of the device that allowed her to hone them, there was little she could do to save them. As the battle unfolded ahead of them, the terrorists' intent was made clear to him, the theft of the mighty Doomfist gauntlet that lay motionless in a case of now shattered glass. With Tracer disabled by poor fortune and the great ape locked in battle with the Assassin and the Reaper, there was only one person left who could keep the prize from evil hands. Raw emotion swelled within the courier then, a force that lay dormant within him for so long, a force called heroism. Commanding his brother to stay safe with the hero he so admired, Brian snuck his way to the case, and the rest became history.

It was not pride, glory, or a lust for violence that kept this memory in his mind or what kept him on the path now, but a sense of purpose he had yet to find before. When he charged into the kill zone unseen, the price he would have paid for failure, the loss of his own life, was no price at all to him. The spoils of victory he claimed that day were a sense of meaning in this world, a feeling given value and significance by the hero that had only just been terrified for him. Eyes that once held horror were now alight with an almost motherly pride for the young man, a sight he had never known before, as she spoke the nine words that became his creed. Before that feeling, fear was an illusion. Before that sense of meaning, pain meant nothing. Before the threat of failing to live up to that expectation, death held no fear. With no more doubt in his mind, body, or soul; he dove forward for the weapon that would lay his enemy low.

Unprepared for such a bold action, the Vulture takes a swift, but clumsy strike that only manages to cut through the courier's hoodie and across the skin of his right arm. Brian did not so much as notice the pain as the carbon steel entered his hand as he recovered from the ground with surprising grace. Still shocked by the sheer audacity of the would-be hero, the Vulture makes his final strike against him. Putting his strength and courage forward, Brian wraps the chain around his hands and sends the length between them at the blade. Steel clashes with steel and muscles strain as the courier's plan is enacted and in the end, the blade's advance is halted.

In confusion at the success of this strategy, the Vulture's focus was broken but Brian's remained steadfast as he seizes the opportunity. Wasting no time, Brian's knee shoots out with brutal speed for the Vulture's groin. Screaming in a pain he could not bear, the Vulture's agony continues as Brian strikes again and again and again, once for every flash of the blade. With the eighth and final blow delivered to the desperado, he finally collapses unconscious from the pain that had likely robbed him of a future generation. The courier stood victorious, confident that the faith and trust that had been placed upon him had been met, if not exceeded.

With the rush of battle finally over, only then did he realize that screams of pain from the bandit's leader had finally ceased. Whether it was from the pain or blood loss, he now remained motionless on the ground by the bloodstained wall. On that same wall, only a few feet away, the girl sit perfectly still, still in absolute awe at the courier's skill. Though it was impossible for him to see his own face that fateful day, he recognized the glimmer of hope in her eyes as the same one his own held all those months ago. However, he could not say with honesty that he believed she had earned it.  
" _Don't get what you're so happy about. I might have bailed so out, but you're still you. Not like you did much._ ", he thought with sneering elitism.  
However, his common sense and empathy soon corrected him.  
" _Wait...The hell am I thinking? She was stabbed in the leg, probably can't even walk now. Besides, it's not like I know what she did before I showed up. Even if she tried and failed, it's something._ "

With no danger remaining for the two of them, he attempts a proper introduction once again. With the wound in her leg still fresh and leaking, he planned to make his greeting a short one. Judging by the ripped bag of flour, Brian figured she was likely on her way home and assuming the Grocery Store he passed on the way there was only a few blocks away, they were likely very close to her home. Though his muscles were still tense from his battle, he was more than prepared to bring her to the safety of home, supporting her all the way on his shoulder. But he was getting ahead of himself once again, the words still remained unspoken even after a second chance and it was well past time to correct that.

"Hey, you o-"

The jingle of chains and a heavy footstep interrupts the courier's second attempt as he turns to see the final attacker standing before him with hate-filled, burning eyes. Through gritted teeth, the criminal bit down fiercely on the blade in a vain attempt to take his mind from the excruciating sensation as his hand disappeared into his jacket. Readying himself for battle once again, Brian takes his stance, raising a left fist in front of his right as he had been taught many years ago. As the faint glint of polished black polymer was made visible as it escaped the rough cut leather, Brian's arrogance collapsed entirely as he realized the threat he now faced: A loaded pistol. Before Brian could so much as attempt to dodge, the deafening sound of a gunshot echoed in the dark alley.

A high-pitched ping sound, like that of a sword striking armor, conquered the space within the courier's head. Soon following behind it was a sharp, thundering, and all-encompassing buzz, like his cranium had become a nest of angry hornets. A tight pressure, like that of a vice, clamped down on his skull and the faint feeling of liquid streaking down his brow brought him a shock of realization: He had been shot in the head. Only then did he realized that his vision had blurred to the point of being functionally blind and dark red lines ran across his sight. All control of his own body had been lost to him as he stumbled and fell backward. Time slowed to a near stop as the pain finally kicked in, the most infernal pain Brian had ever felt up to that point, like a drill with a glowing hot tip had invaded his frontal lobe. The fractions of seconds felt like days as the agony and injury denied him the ability to even think, he could only feel absolute horror alongside his suffering in this epitome of anguish.

The wind kissed him farewell as his torture finally stripped him of consciousness long before he even hit the ground and he was as a corpse.


	4. Chapter 4: Rising

**Chapter 4: Rising**

* * *

Alejandra had heard the distinctive and terrible sounds of gunfire many times due to Los Muertos' chaotic presence. It was such a common sound in fact that even the thunderous rhythms of the firefight that introduced her to the hero vigilante Soldier 76 had hardly phased her as she had tried to sneak past the battle. But she had never been this close to the shout of a gun in all her years alive in a city infested by crime. The ear-splitting report invaded her ears and left a painful, disorientating ringing within them, yet she did not even notice. An absolute and inescapable horror had enslaved her soul as she witnessed the angel-eyed boy who had come to her rescue fall to his death in a flash of Inigo's pistol.

As she stared into his still and lifeless eyes as crimson blood gushed from his fatal wound, the weight of mortality was staked within Alejandra as it never had before. She forced herself to avert her gaze from his face of death for the sake of her sanity. Shutting her eyes tight, the echo of the shot remained inside her head as the pain of the wretched sound finally caught up with her. The agonizing ringing was soon accompanied by a brief attempt by Inigo to laugh in triumph at his kill cut short by his own agony. Daring not to move from her position, Alejandra could only quake with her back to the wall as the bandit let out a slew of muffled half-swears.

In time, the wordless void necrophobia had made of her mind gave way and her thoughts returned, though they offered her little comfort.  
" _Oh my god...I'm going to die…_ "  
She had no choice but to think such a thought as her entire body tremored.

" _There was nothing I could do before, but now I can't even hope…_ ", she resigned.

Her eyes slowly cracked open to reveal the still fresh incision in her leg. Pain coursed through her entire body with even the slightest movement of her right leg, making any attempt at escape impossible, the same position she had been in since the Boy in the Blue Hoodie had first made his attack.

Hearing stifled grunts of agony once again, she looked up to witness Inigo still writhing where he stood. He had not been prepared for the recoil of his weapon, an old-fashioned lead slinger rather than a modern pulse design, and the force had traveled all the way to the laceration through his cheek. His agony soon turned to anger and he made the ill-planned decision to add insult to injury by delivering a kick to the fallen would-be hero's genitals. Having learned nothing from his previous experience, the action sent torment coursing through his face once again while the lifeless body felt nothing. The desperado soon collapsed to his knees in the vain hope that it would somehow ease his suffering.

Even with Inigo kneeling motionless and near crippled by his suffering, Alejandra still felt like a fly in the web.  
" _His back's turned and he's on the ground but I can't even walk...Even if I could, there's no way I could dodge a bullet….It's just not fair, giving me a chance when I'm like this..._ "

As she wallowed in despair, her panicked eyes affixed to the ground until a glint of light hits the corner of her eye. Quickly moving her gaze, she discovers its source: a faint reflection off the wrench belonging to the rider in blue, just out of her arm's reach. While her soul was still despondent, the gears in her mind quickly began to turn with this new discovery.

Before she had formed even the first step of a plan, she immediately reached out to claim this invaluable tool. With Inigo's back to her and his groans of anguish all the more louder to himself, the boy's improvised weapon entered Alejandra's grasp with ease.  
" _Okay, I have a weapon, but it's not like I can defend myself like this. I'm still stuck at square one.", she thought, still defeated by her own pain. "Even with his back turned, I can't get the drop on him with my leg like this. And I can't even throw it at him t-_ "  
In a flash, a new road to safety had been found.  
" _Wait, what am I thinking? The weight would be on my left leg if I tried to throw it at him, so I could do it!... But if I miss, that's it. I'm more dead than I would be if I just sat here. Heck, the only reason I have this thing is_ because Angel _Eyes missed and who knows how long he's been doing this kind of thing. If he couldn't do it, what chance do I have?_ "

Still in overwhelming agony, Inigo was absolutely still as he kept pressure on his gruesome wound, fighting the instinct to try pulling the knife from his cheek. In the deadly speed of the Rider's battle that Alejandra had been so absorbed in, her sense of time had been lost and as such, she could not gauge how long Inigo had been suffering. Although he was still near crippled, without a solid estimation of his current state she could not know how effective an attack would be even if she did hit the mark. Inigo first joined Los Muertos at fifteen, as most young men his age had in the desperate times of the gang's first few years of rule in Dorado, and quickly gained a reputation for an iron jaw in his three years of experience. However, a strong body is near worthless without a mind to match it and as such he had yet to rise in the ranks beyond a simple enforcer. Alejandra was well aware of these facts given how close they lived to each other and considering both of them had her constantly wavering between both options.

Mentally lost, she was unable to keep her eyes from wandering back to the Rider's. A look of shock was frozen within his eyes, one more of genuine surprise than of horror, to Alejandra's confusion.  
" _It must have happened so fast he didn't even feel it. At least...I hope he didn't feel it…_ ", she empathized.  
With this, her mind began to wander,  
" _Just who are you Angel Eyes? What gave you the confidence to save me or, hell, even to ride this far in the first place? I wish I had even a fraction of your confidence...Attacking or not should even be a choice for me, but I can't help but second guess myself._ "

Examining him as thoroughly as she could from her place on the wall, she searched for even the most meager insight into the source of the boy's unbreakable self-assurance. Ignoring his frozen expression, his facial features were surprisingly soft, even for a boy of his age, though it was clear his journey had slowly but surely maturing him. His hair was medium in length and unstyled, though given the length of his sideburns, he likely had it cut several weeks ago. His clothing was dirty and worn despite appearing to have been purchased fairly recently. Regardless of their condition, they were very common articles of clothing, neither the cutting edge of fashion or the mark of poverty, his blue sweatshirt the only standout choice in style. By Alejandra's reckoning, he was merely an average person, with no real social, economic, or even language barriers separating the two of them.

" _Nothing...There's no secret to him...He's just some guy…_ ".  
Alejandra thought, defeated before she soon realized the same truth he had discovered. A hero is not made by any natural gift or circumstance of birth, but a sense of right that conquers all fears in the face of evil. As she slowly rose up with wrench in hand, she came to know that feeling well.  
" _Even if I live through this by just sitting back, it's not exactly a life worth living if I just spend it being afraid. I have to be better than that._ "  
Her fist clenched as she remembered all the years of terror Los Muertos had reigned over her city as anger joined this heroic resolve. The fear that once crippled her may have remained, but this overwhelming force dwarfed that petty emotion in short order.  
" _I can win...I will win...I'm tired of cowering and I'm tired of just waiting to be a hero, my time is now!_ "

The gash in her leg was nothing to Alejandra now as she stood upright, unlike her aggressor who remained absorbed in his own. Planting her left foot down aggressively, doing her best to imitate her latest hero, she prepares to attack. While physical training had been the focus of her limited spare time after her last encounter with an American, the weight of the wrench was still noticeable to her. Even with this discrepancy, her resolve was not swayed as she took aim.

" _One hit to the back of the head is sure to take him down. It could even kill him, but after what he did to Angel Eyes, he has it coming. The court would probably execute him for doing it anyway._ ", she thought with uncharacteristic darkness as her muscles tightened.

With conviction, she made the throw that would decide the rest of her life. Her eyes burned with spirit as the Rider's weapon leaves her hand and a slight tinge of pain runs through her right leg as she fails to keep all of the pressure in her left while struggling to maintain balance. With this mistake, the wrench curves off-center, veering hard to the right. To a person of inferior luck, this error would have been a fatal one, but in the fractions of seconds of the wrench's flight, Inigo turned to face the baker's daughter. To his astronomical misfortune, Inigo's right elbow entered the direct path of the wrench and the shock of the blow forced him to drop the still loaded gun.

As his anguish was renewed by a reflexive scream, Alejandra scrambled for the pistol that slid across the ground in the confusion. In her haste to grab the weapon out of pure survival instinct, anguish shot through her left leg and forced her to the ground. The two locked eyes as their heads rose from the pavement, however this pause lasted only milliseconds before their arms rocketed for the gun. The black polymer grip entered the girl's hand and she reeled her arms back to keep it from the murderer's reach. Training the barrel on the killer, the both of them were frozen in shock at her success.

Her hands damp with sweat and shaking uncontrollably, Alejandra scrambled backward while struggling to keep the sights trained. Although the weapon was lightweight and easy to handle, even for Alejandra, the weight of the situation kept it from being still. Adrenaline coursed through her as never before, her heart beat faster than a drum in hexi kicks, and she left not even a half second between her breaths under this immense pressure. Slowly she began to rise upstanding, ignoring the soreness once again as she issued the bandit a command with a trembling voice.

"D-don't move!"

While his outrage was written clearly upon his face, Inigo did as he was told. The adrenaline made time seem almost frozen to Alejandra as she continuously failed to regain body control. Again, her mind was boggled in regards to what her next move should be.  
" _What do I do now? I can't just shoot him can I? It would count as self-defense if I did, but I've never even looked a gun this close before, one shot's probably the most I'd get out. But even then, I can't just kill him! Even if he is a murderer, I can't kill someone just like that, but I don't think I can hold out here forever...and...wait, Angel Eyes might actually have a chance at making it if I can call an ambulance! But I can only do that by taking Inigo down...Oh god, what should I do?_ "

Alejandra's doubts and neurosis were painfully obvious at sight, something made known to her by Inigo's own noticeable reaction. A lack of confidence soon leads to a lack of blood in a fight and Alejandra would not have even entered this one were if not for the Rider's own courage. Inigo, on the other hand, was a seasoned combatant in his three years of experience in Los Muertos. His robust confidence and mediocre intelligence allowed him to be smart enough to be dumb enough to charge down Alejandra while the sights were still trained on him. The baker's daughter was quite aware of this and the arrogant smirk the bandit had failed to hide told her she had only moments to make the choice.

Time was still non-existent to the two of them as the plotted and strategized against each other. Sweat trickled down the grip as Alejandra's shaking hands gradually began to still. She was no longer fighting for her life alone, and that fact alone strengthened her resolve. The angel-eyed boy would have a chance at survival if she pulled the trigger.

" _One life to save another...Fair enough for me._ ", she concluded.

Her moral dilemma was settled in her mind, but not in her body or soul, as her uncontrollable movements and gnawing unease yet remained. In a sudden lunge, Inigo sought to prey on this weakness, and Alejandra was forced to make her decision in the beat of a fly's wing.

In that immeasurably short moment of time, all the terror she had worked so hard to push away came rushing back. Her eyes clamped themselves shut beyond her control and she turned her head away as her finger began to twitch. Her heart no longer beating due to the stress, she pulls her index backward. The violent report rendered her deaf to all other sounds, to her benefit, as it kept her from hearing the blood-curdling scream. However, her mishandling of the pistol and the recoil sent her arms flying backward and the hardened plastic collided with her temple.

Staggered, but not taken off her feet by the blow, the dual pains inside within her skull left her disoriented. It was several moments before she could even bring herself to open her eyes once again to witness what fate awaited her. Lying face down in a pool of his own blood, Inigo no longer posed a threat to her or anyone else. The horrific sight shriveled Alejandra's very soul and made her both physically and spiritually ill. But before her morality could force her to break out in tears or regurgitate in self-disgust for her act of killing, she noticed a subtle movement from the brigand's torso.

" _He's...still breathing...Good…He just fainted from all the pain..._ "

Though the sight of flowing crimson repulsed her, she traced its flow from Inigo's body to the location of the damage she had inflicted. Missing his most guarded of organs by mere inches, the shot had penetrated his bladder and the lack of an exit wound told her the lead still remained there. But Inigo's injuries were not her primary concern. Swiftly she shoved the skull-emblazoned gangster over, doing her best to ignore the spasm of pain in her leg as she did so.

" _Even if he's a criminal and a murderer at that, it's not right to just let him die.", Alejandra's humanity told her as she rushed over to the angel-eyed rider to do deliver the same mercy_.

Kneeling down, she only just manages to stop her first instinct of turning his head skyward. Running her hand through his thick hair, she examines the back of his head closely and is relieved to find no exit wound on him either. With no danger of worsening his condition, she turns his head to face her. Face stained red and eyes still frozen in a deathly stare, she swiped her hand down to close his eyes shut to keep her from the morbid gaze. The loss of blood slowed, but not stopped, she folded the boy's hood over the fatal wound and kept it pressed down as she reached for her phone. In terrified haste, she dials 9-1-1 and in the agonizing delay, as the call connects, she whispered words of encouragements to her breathless hero.

" _Live, Angel Eyes. Punch out St. Peter if you have to, just please come back._ "


	5. Chapter 5: Black

**Chapter 5: Black**

* * *

Nothing. No sights, sounds, or even feelings surrounded him. He didn't know where he was or how he came to be here. He had not a single memory: not a name, a face, or even the knowledge he was a "he." Yet, a feeling lingered that he had once been someone or something before he had been taken to this blank abyss. He could not even think about how he came to be here as he lacked a mind to do so. He wished to explore the endless void but lacked a body to feel his surroundings, much less explore them. Formless, brainless, and trapped within nothingness; he was alone with only raw emotion as his companion.

Locked in a melancholic awe, his only sense told him that something was deeply wrong. Fear came with this instinctual discovery, but his inability to remedy the situation left the feeling stagnant. Soon enough frustration joined the other emotions as he struggled to search for a memory that no longer existed. Anger came to silent rage at the universe he could not know for leaving him like this. Finally, with the passing time he was not capable of sensing, he was left with only despair.

" _Why?"_ His first thought came in an instant before it was followed by the immense joy of even _having_ thoughts.

" _How_?" his mind may have returned, but his memory had not.

" _Where am I? What am I?"_

Slowly, the blank abyss was lifted and replaced with one of pure white. Ecstatic, he attempted to survey the void. He did all he could to find so much to move even a single muscle for this goal, but this was all in vain as he was not even sure he had anything to move. After countless attempts to command what wasn't there, he silently cursed the universe.

" _Can't look, can't move, and can't even remember anything; this is worse than being nothing._ "

His frustration was brief as returning memories gave him a fresh source of bliss.

The first of his memories crept in slowly from the void and his name, Brian, returned to him. Following close behind, he recalled his day of glory at the Overwatch Museum and the simple words that held so much meaning to him. From there, he had traveled from the Golden State to the Golden City in pursuit of living up to the title of hero she had granted to him. The shock of recognition came as he now remembered his encounter with three desperados and how it had ended.

His hand shot up to his forehead, shocked that he had reclaimed his body at all, he was dumbfounded to feel the disturbing sensation of split flesh. No pain spread from the nine millimeters of damage, and that made it all the more unsettling to the young man. Scanning what surrounded him, pure white stretched across his vision. Despite there being no ground in this new non-environment, he stood as if he were on solid ground. He understood now where he was, the place his parents had been so reluctant to tell him awaited at the end, an abyss. However, his previous state had been more akin to what he had been led to believe the end would be. Very briefly, he pondered how the recent return of his mind and form could have been before an answer quickly revealed itself.

 _This is all you can see?_

 _That explains a great deal..._

The words came without voice or sound, penetrating his mind and soul alike. With haste, his eyes darted to find the one who spoke these ominous words. His search was a short one as he turned backward to behold a great and terrible sight: An infinite and impenetrable darkness. Gazing upward, horrified, the canvas of pure black towered above him, into a non-existent sky to such an immense height that it would take the courier over five hundred years to cover a distance equal to it. His observations complete, the words invaded his mind once again.

 _...But it is not surprising in the very least for one such as you._

It was not a figure that stood within the dark that spoke to him, but the black pillar itself. There were only three things the being before him could be and each spawned anxiety inside the would-be hero. Each option was one he had been told could not exist, for better or worse. The only other explanation was the collapse of his sanity, but in the face of such a horrible being, he could not afford to take that chance.

"Who are you?" the boy asked as if the answer would make any difference.

 _A Judge._

 _The one all men face._

Brian was confused by this statement and asked one of the simplest questions known to man, "What?"

The reply came to him without inflection, emotion, or tone, yet each one radiated absolute authority.

 _Well, I had hoped you were perceptive enough to realize it by now…_

 _You are dead and we are alone._

Brian may have convinced himself on Earth that death was no price at all for his glory, but one look at The Black was enough to change his position. Angel, demon, or just a figment of his imagination; the impossible creature chilled the boy to his very core. Given his upbringing, Brian was only vaguely familiar with the many theories of the afterlife. As he understood these many concepts, he believed himself to be in the realm of Purgatory, where souls are judged before their rise or fall to the next plane. Dwelling on the mediocrity of his life before that day at the museum and what he managed could accomplish after it, he was overcome with dread at his own judgment.

"So...This is it..." he resigned to The Black.

 _No, it is not._

Within the gloom that formed the ghastly column, a faint orange glow began to shine. Growing larger and brighter by the second, the light began to take shape. A circle of bright orange enveloped a comparatively microscopic section of the infinite black, creating a luminous eye that dwarfed the would-be hero. The gaze was still and piercing, but the burning iris was almost unstable as if The Black struggled to maintain it. Orange turned gradually to red the farther the color traveled from the pupil to its very edges. Small fragments, no bigger than the young man's hand, separated from the whole like a splitting amoeba and slowly drifted into the surrounding darkness, eventually dying out like the embers of a fire.

 _You were granted the greatest gift of all, the gift of life._

 _Tell me...what have you done to be worthy of such fortune?_

With the question asked, a reflective mucus began to cover the massive eye, forcing the young man to stare at the boyish face he so despised. Brian knew what this question likely entailed for him; it could decide how far down in hell he would be falling. He knew there would be no point in lying to a being of such obvious power. Given the knowledge it possessed of him, this was certainly a rhetorical question. Considering his fifteen years of life carefully, he answered with complete honesty of spirit.

"Nothing...I died before I could..."

 _Oh?_

 _That's an odd answer for someone who has done more in one year than most others accomplish in their entire existence._

Brian was taken aback by the dark one's words of praise and again made the mistake of asking another pointless question, "What?"

The great eye of the darkness underwent another mitosis, though this one appeared very much an act of its will. Far larger than the mere embers of before, a second eye, almost two stories in height and five yards wide, split from its parent. Even with this, the great eye remained just as massive as before, as if the split had not occurred. Parent and offspring alike continued to separate and multiply, each new organ smaller than the last and each locked on the young man. This ceaseless creation persisted even as The Black answered the question.

 _You left your home at fifteen years old and proved yourself more self-reliant than even many of the heroes you worship so._

 _You traveled over two thousand and four hundred miles on your lonesome for no reason than to better yourself._

 _You fought nine battles that were not yours, including your glory that started this journey you value so._

 _In the process, you saved the mortal lives of at least four others._

 _All this and you still believe that you are nothing?_

Remembering the boy he was before his day of triumph, Brian defends his answer.

"...That wasn't enough, I could've done more."

 _As could all who live, and you surpass much of them already._

 _You have already proven yourself and yet you can barely stand to meet your own gaze._

"So? Just because I'm better than someone else doesn't make me good!" he dared to raise his voice to the being beyond his comprehension.

 _And being just another human does not make you wretched._

 _You must know where this path of your will end and the sins you must commit before it does._

"Before it does?"

 _I already told you that this was not all._

 _You may continue on the hero's path, but are you sure that is truly the best for you?_

 _I would prefer it if our next talk were many decades from now._

While Brian considered this offer closely, he had already decided the answer when he took the road out of Oakland. Before he took up the gauntlet that fateful day, he was just another urchin among the hundreds of thousands of his city. A lower-middle class child with average grades and parents who rarely even interacted with him, save whenever he stepped out of line. Unimportant, unremarkable, and unloved; it was a life he considered akin to death. With grim conviction, he gives his answer.

"I don't care."

 _Then it is already decided._

The thousand unblinking eyes that studied the would-be hero faded into the great blackness that spawned them, one by one until he was left alone with pure darkness once again. A dull pain filled Brian's head, centered around the wound that was once so disturbingly numb. Though his instincts screamed at him to clutch his forehead, his body could not answer the call. An overwhelming fatigue had enveloped him as if his very muscles had withered away inside his skin. Unable to support the weight of his own flesh and bones, he collapses onto his back.

 _..._

Blind and physically drained, he was barely aware that he was awake. Lacking the strength to so much as open his eyes, he relied on his ears alone to tell him of his surroundings. Foremost among all other sounds was an incessant beeping only a foot from his head, but in between these annoyances, the faint sound of the bustle of work could be heard, likely muffled by walls. The near silent voices he could hear amongst the commotion were in Spanish, a language he understood well even in his decrepit state, but the continual interruptions of the beeping device and the thick walls kept him from discerning a single word.

Distant memories already entrenched and more recent ones returning in short order, he remembered where his agonizing headache had come from and soon realized where he was as the delay between beeps became wider. Against all odds, he had survived a bullet to the head and the stereotype of Mexican medicine had proved to be mercifully untrue as he was assuredly resting in a hospital bed. It was impossible for him to know how long it had been since his fatal injury and anything that happened in between then and now had faded away like a dream. He could not shake the feeling that something terrible had occurred before he had awakened, but that was a matter of the soul, not the mind, and as such he could not understand it.

It was an odd weariness to the young man who was already well adjusted to the road. It was as if he had just woken from a deep sleep that had lasted two weeks, and for all he could have known, that may have been the case. After what he estimated was an hour, he finally managed to crack his eyelids open by no more than a millimeter. The invading light of midday forced him blind once again, as he discovered he was laying next to an open window. Lifting his eyelids once again, now prepared for the unpleasant sensation, he surveyed the room.

It was a very plain room, even for a hospital, one of muted colors and no decoration to speak of. A small chair caught his attention as the only detail of note. It was simply made, constructed from wood with stitched blue cushions decorated with small red and yellow vertical stripes. While not out of place in a hospital, its presence in the room seemed strange to him for a reason he was unable to place. He attempted to continue his exploration, but his body was still locked in physical torpor. He could not do so much as flop his head to the side to look out the window, not that he wished to, still being sensitive to light.

" _Well...beats death._ " he weakly attempted to look on the bright side. He could do nothing now but wait to fully recover and for someone to arrive to explain the situation to him, much to his ire. As his mind was still recuperating with the rest of him, he lacked the ability to deduce the finer details of what had happened after his brush with death. In the agony of his own impatience, he mulled over the loose threads of what happened while he was lost beyond life, with one supreme over all, " _I hope that girl made it out okay…"_


	6. Chapter 6: Recovery

**Chapter 6: Recovery**

* * *

It was sunset before the door opened again. A man with a thin face that bordered on gaunt which made him look nearly a decade older than his natural age of thirty-two entered with a pleasant, yet almost forced greeting in shaky English, "Good evening, I see you're doing much better!"

He was clad in medical scrubs, near identical to that of the other staff including the same solitary difference of his name tag. The name tag told the bedridden boy that his name was Doctor Benedicto. Brian had been expecting him, although not specifically, ever since his last conversation with the staff. However, a mouthful of lukewarm soup kept him from an immediate response.

The nurse who found him awake had told him that one of the doctors would come to evaluate his status personally once more pressing fares were resolved. While that news gave him relief at the time, his real comfort came when the nurse was authorized to help ease his weariness with a medicine he could not hope to pronounce the name of. Having recovered enough to just barely sit up, his only other request was for a morsel of food, something simple and filling to ease his continued weariness, while he waited for the doctor's arrival. As he finally managed to shred through a large piece of chicken, a surprisingly difficult task in his still severely weakened state, he answered in concise, but strangely accented Spanish, "Yeah."

"Well...Glad to hear it!" the doctor replied in his native language, not expecting the American to be so casual for a man back from death. "I'm Doctor Benedicto, the Neuropsychologist here at Hernandez General, and I'm here to evaluate your condition. I'd like to start with a few questions before we move on to the examination if that's alright with you."

Brian let the question hang. He considered asking a few of his own, starting with the most innocuous one, "Alright...can I finishing eating while you do 'em?"

"Oh, uh, certainly! Actually, while we're on that topic, can I ask how it tastes to you? Do any of the ingredients taste even slightly different than they did before?"

"Yeah, I've been getting this weird aftertaste. Can't really explain how it tastes, other than bad, but it's been there ever since I started on this. And I'm not sure if it's just the brand or whatever, but chicken has a lot less flavor than it used too."

"Believe it or not, that's very good news! Most people who suffer brain trauma as severe as yours have lost their sense of taste anywhere from months to the rest of their lives. You are a very lucky young man, but then again, us talking at all is proof of that."

With a forced cough to clear his throat, the doctor continued,

"Now, let's start from the top: Can you remember your name?"

"Yeah, Brian."

"And your last name?"

"...Does it matter?"

Benedicto paused, swiftly calculating what had just been said for a half second before responding with a foreboding,

"...I'll take that as a no."

Brian was not so blind as to miss this pause and the weight of the Benedicto's response. He had no interest in speaking of his past, more out of pride than pain, even if the doctor was just trying to help him. Attempting to communicate this in an indirect, but entirely unsubtle way, he replies,

"No, I remember and all, but I don't really see why you guys need to know that."

Utterly failing to dispel suspicion, the neurologist raised an eyebrow reflexively. The neurologist opted to move on to his next question, not wanting to run into a conversational roadblock this early on with the boy.

"...I see...Well, let's just move on then: What can you remember before waking up? What is your last memory?"

"Getting shot in the head and it hurting like all hell."

"A very blunt way of putting it, but it's good to hear your short-term memory seems to be working just fine."

With this memory, Brian interjected with a question of his own.

"Hey, I'm here, so we won, right?"

Benedicto paused again, but his response was far quicker and sounded of legitimate confusion.

"'We?'"

"Yeah, she's how I got here, right? That girl who got stabbed in the leg by those guys? She made it out, right?"

The subtle tells of the emotion in Brian's words seemed to the set the doctor at the closest thing to ease since he had walked through the door.

"Oh, yes, she is perfectly fine now. I was just under the impression that you did not know each other before the incident."

"We don't, but I'm here, so she must have done something to beat that guy with the gun."

"Well, according to the police report, that seems to be the case, but I'm sure she'd prefer to tell you about it personally."

"She's here now?"

"Oh no, but I could arrange for someone to call her mother once we are done here."

"No…It's fine, don't bother."

"...Can I ask why?"

"Cause she's fine and I'm fine enough, so there's nothing to be said."

"Not even a thank you?"

"Don't need one."

"I meant you giving her one."

"...I don't like being that personal."

Still needing to know more of Brian's medical issues, Benedicto avoided pressing him on his apparent social ones. The questions of his memories, cognitive abilities, and ability to reason continued for well over half an hour. The majority of that time was spent on lengthy phycological tests, namely one of word association and a Rorschach, both of which were familiar to Brian and the results were near identical. Eventually, the doctor was satisfied and moved on to his physical condition.

"Can you tell me, in general, how you feel?"

"Like my bones are rock and my muscles are rubber."

"Even with the medication? From what the nurse described and the charts indicated, you were doing surprisingly well after it was administered."

"I'm fine. Just because it's hard doesn't mean I can't do it."

"But that doesn't mean you should do it either. You still haven't fully recovered, you even being awake is well beyond what we expected."

Brian sat in silence for some time, considering the implications of that statement, before asking in a somber tone,

"...How long have I been out anyway?"

"Oh, not long, it's been just under twenty-four hours since you arrived. I know that may not sound very dramatic, but people are rarely comatose for longer than a week with injuries like yours. In fact, we were expecting you to be unconscious for at least three days."

His mind could not form many words in the face of this news, save for a simple astonished,

"Oh."

"That's part of why we're doing this. Now, let's move on to the actual examination."

The next few minutes were a barrage of simple tests to assess his condition. Prodding and poking at skin and muscle to find even the slightest of errors revealed little out of order, save for a slight decrease in his pain receptors. An eye test revealed a minor loss of nearsighted vision, but it was nothing that could not be fixed and an examination of his other organs showed no new problems.

"According to the results, we should be able to fix everything with a few treatments over the next few days."

"A few days?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about any more surgeries, it's just about waiting for the right conditions for further medication. Your current dose is still taking effect and it could be dangerous if the next isn't administered at the right time."

"Ok, fine, whatever, but when will I be able to walk again?"

"Well, based on how well you're doing as of now, two days. Maybe one if your luck keeps holding out."

Luck was not a word Brian associated himself with very often, but it was one he applied to the most precious of his effects.

"Hmm. Speaking of, what did you guys do with my stuff?"

Confused by this seeming non-sequitur, the doctor answered regardless.

"We have them in storage right now, we'll get them to you as soon as we can. We took the liberty of washing the clothes you had on during your incident. It wouldn't look very good for us to have someone walking out the doors covered in a blood-stained hoodie after all."

His weak jest did not move the young man's features by so much as a twitch.

"And my bike?"

"Of course, I'm told we have it locked up outside, but we moved all the pouches in with the rest. And don't worry, it's not damaged, at least not seriously."

A near silent sigh of relief escaped the courier's mouth.

"Good."

"Quite...but I hope you're not planning on riding it out of here once you're fit enough to leave. I don't have to tell you how taxing riding is physically, but trying to do so after your injuries could be dangerous, even fatal if it's that far out of town."

Brian caught his choice of words, ignoring the kindness within them.

"Why did you say 'that far'? What makes you think I would even be leaving the city?"

Benedicto was unsurprisingly taken aback by this accusation and the haste of his changing features spoke of treachery.

"Oh, w-well, I just assumed since you're so well traveled you would want to move on as soon as possible."

While certainly a correct assumption of the courier, it was not one easily seen in a hospital bed. There was one way they could have known his occupation and it was not one that was legal in his home state of California. Even if the laws did not apply across the border, Brian's offense at it did.

"...You dug through my stuff didn't you?"

The doctor's face resigned in defeat in guilt as he revealed the truth.

"Not personally, no, but the surgeons needed to know who you were so we could find your medical history, just to be perfectly sure how to medicate you. The brain is a delicate thing, and biotics can have adverse reactions in certain people, you being one of them as it turns out. We had no choice, it would have meant your life if we did not."

Brian squinted in anger as his tone grew darker.

"...Did you tell anyone there about it?"

"No, there was no need, once we knew your name and narrowed down what hospital had your records, everything was there on their system."

Relaxing ever so slightly, the boy responded,

"Good, then we don't have a problem."

Brian was entirely sincere in his reply and that raised only further questions for the doctor.

"...I see."

Not so blind as to not see how suspicious he appeared, Brian answered the unspoken question in his own vague way.

"It's got nothing to do with the law if that's what you're thinking. But I'm not going back."

Again, Benedicto paused and considered pressing the boy on the clear trauma he was refusing to directly acknowledge, only deciding against it once he had taken a glance at the current time.

"...Alright then, I imagine that's not something you're willing to talk about, so let's try to move on. Well, with all that finished, I think it's safe to say you're well on the road to recovery, all things considered. We're going to have to do some additional tests later, mostly physical ones, but the preliminary results are very promising. Outside of some minor nerve damage, everything important seems to be working just fine and we should have you back on your feet in two days, maybe even one if your luck continues as it has. And speaking of, your next round of medication starts in a few minutes. We're going to have to render you unconscious before that, so did you have any questions or comments before we do?"

"Yeah, what happened to those thugs? They in jail yet?"

"Don't worry, I doubt they'll ever be on the other side of a cell again. Two counts of attempted murder aren't something that's easily bribed away, even for someone in Los Muertos."

"And the guy who shot me? How'd she deal with him?"

"Well, according to what she told the people at the administrations desk, she managed to knock the gun out of his hands by throwing a wrench, grabbed the gun in the confusion and shot him in the bladder."

The would-be hero was silent for a time before responding with a monotone, but clearly impressed,

"...Wow."

The doctor had caught on to that small tell in the young man's voice, Though he intended on pressing him tomorrow once he had more time to recover, Benedicto thought it best not to waste this opportunity.

"Are you sure you don't want to speak with her? You're going to be here for some time until you fully recover, a week at the very least, and she was very concerned about you when you both arrived. You may not have a choice in the matter."

"...Great," Brian said in a frustrated, yet almost guilt-ridden tone.

"Is talking to her that really that unappealing to you?"

"I don't like being that personal and I don't like staying in one place for too long."

"Hmm...Maybe that's something we can work on while you're here."

"I don't plan on staying long enough for that. Soon as I can walk, I'm going back to work."

"At Navarro?"

"Mostly, yeah."

Lips pursed in mild frustration, Benedicto replied in a firm timbre,

"I'll need to reiterate that it could be weeks before your body can even handle riding down the street, much less across the city. You barely survived as is, you shouldn't push yourself like that."

Desperate to change the subject, Brian attempted an appeal to the doctor's pride.

"...Oh hang on, that reminds me: Thanks."

"Excuse me?"

"I never thanked you for pulling that bullet out of my head."

With mixed feelings given the boy's obvious evasiveness and his seemingly legitimate thanks, Benedicto decided it best to stay the course for the time being. The American would be confined to the hospital regardless of how he answered his questions either way, there was no need for the doctor to rush this delicate process.

"Well, you're welcome, but I'm afraid I can't take your thanks. I'm a neuropsychologist, not a neurosurgeon, but I can understand the confusion."

"Oh...Well, are they still here so I can do this right?"

"She's not in right now, sadly, she had to head right back home after we were sure your condition was stable since we woke her up in the middle of the night to come in. Your condition was severe and she was the only member of the staff skilled enough to save you. Extracting a bullet from an area as sensitive as the human brain is no simple thing, even among neurosurgeons. Normally, the surgeons would do their own follow up with you, but I'm not exaggerating when I say she needed to go back home. There's only so much caffeine can do, after all. It's probably for the best anyway, she's not exactly known for her bedside manner."

The young man wasn't exactly sure how to feel given all this information, so he settled with focusing on his gratitude for his unknown savior.

"Well, fair enough I guess, just leave a note or something then. Actually, how did I even survive? I thought the point of bullets was that they have more punch than pulse."

"That's part of why I've been calling you lucky. The bullet was a hollow point, meaning that it was designed to 'mushroom' on impact to make the bullet, and therefore the wound, larger as it enters the body. But this one had the slightest of errors, the serrations in the tip were uneven, causing it to not expand properly. That, coupled with the natural loss of penetration power, let you avoid what would otherwise be instant death. It's a one in a million chance for a mistake that to happen when they're manufactured. That's not to say it still wasn't a close call, however, the bullet still reached as far as your Parietal Lobe, which is why the chicken tasted so different to you. To put that in perspective, that's almost all the way to the back of your head," Benedicto explained with weary knowledge.

Brian sat in silence for several awkward moments after learning just how close he had come to death. He wondered then if the vague memories between his fall and rise had some bearing of truth and were not just some strange dream. No clear memory of what he had seen remained, not a single image, only a bizarre feeling remained that he hadn't the words to describe; something between terror, awe, and revelation. For a time, he wished to ask Benedicto about his unearthly experience, but he forced himself to stop. If the doctor believed him even madder than he surely already thought him to be, his stay could be all the longer. In place of his outlandish question, he instead told a truth that was considerably further down on his list of relevant topics.

"Wow, no wonder I can still feel it then.", he said as he ran a hand across the bandaging stretched across his forehead.

"Actually, on that note, it's right about time for your next biotics treatment. We'll have to sedate you before we administer it, so do you have any more questions before we put you under?"

"I thought you said that stuff doesn't work on me."

"Oh no, quite the opposite in fact. To put it in inaccurate, but simple terms, you have what is essentially a reverse-allergy to biotics. It's by a factor of less than three percent, but you regrow more tissue than most other people do when exposed to biotics. The reason why it was so dangerous to administer the normal concentration during your operation was that growing even a tiny section of extra brain matter could have been absolutely devastating. It would essentially be a tumor. Even if the growth isn't instantly fatal, the effects it could have on your body could be catastrophic, especially with your heart condition."

It was an unpleasant memory for Brian to recall and one that sired a very miffed question from the young man.

"What? I thought that was under control."

"Don't worry. It is for now. We ran a full body scan and there were no problems, but that large of a change to the makeup of your brain could have easily changed that. The straw that broke the camel's back, as it were."

Brian's eyelids tightened once again.

"Not helping."

"...You're right, I'm sorry, that was a poor choice of words. Well, in any case, if there's nothing else I'll get out the anesthesia so we can get started. It's only a simple injection, but it would be much safer if you were unconscious during it. On that note, it would be for the best if you stayed asleep until tomorrow while the medication takes effect."

"Fine, great, whatever. I got nothing better to do anyway," the young man let his anger slip.

"Excellent," the doctor followed suit.

Wasting no time, Benedicto detaches the overbed table and empty soup bowl with it. Resting the plastic board aside, he opens a nearby closet to reveal a small tank on rickety wheels. Placing the face mask on the young man, Benedicto spoke one last sentence as he reached for the valve.

"We'll start your physical therapy once you wake up tomorrow."

"Whatever gets me out faster."

With a twist of the doctor's wrist, the gas flowed through the mask and filled the little air within it. With no reason to fight it, Brian closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

 _..._

It was a quarter past four when Alejandra walked into his room. There was little Brian could say, ill-prepared as he was having just gotten back from his first therapy session and in the process of redressing himself in more familiar attire. He counted himself lucky that he had put on his shirt and pants in time. They were not difficult or tiring exercises, but he felt sore and fatigued all the same. It was the same lingering ache he had felt upon waking up, staying with him almost like some supernatural curse. It was not as if he had much to say, but strangely she too remained voiceless. She seemed locked in place, wide-eyed and breathless. He didn't like the implication, not at all. As the time spent in silence came close to reaching double digits, he broke it with a simple, "Hey."

Suddenly regaining sentient thought, she fumbled her own greeting back to him, "H-Hi."

Brian winced near invisibly at the sound of her flustered stutter. He was aware of his appearance and knew just how infatuated a person could be with their savior, but he had no desire to exploit the situation, especially with a girl who looked barely a day into her teens. His social awkwardness and lack of experience aside, he dreaded the idea of relationships with anyone. As far as he was concerned, it was nothing but a distraction for what he considered truly important even while his continuing puberty was desperate to convince him otherwise. Impressed as he was with her apparent dispatching of the gun-toting bandit that had nearly ended his life, he did not intend to stray from his path no matter what he might gain for it. " _The world has enough people who think you beat life just by getting some ass, I gotta be better than that_ ," he bluntly surmised within his mind.

Haggard by the continued lack of sound from either of them, he broke the dead air once again. "Okay look, I'm just gonna be straight with you, I don't need a thank you or a reward, I just want to get back on the road. Thanks for saving me, you did a good job and all, but I really don't need anything. You've done enough for me." Taken aback, confused, yet not showing any obvious signs of offense; Alejandra remained wordless. It was evident to Brian that his charm and interpersonal skills remained very much the same and that oddly enough was a good sign given the circumstances.

More collected than before, Alejandra calmly spoke her piece as if she were trying to reason with him, "I just needed to see that you were fine. I needed to know the fight wasn't for nothing."

A twinge of guilt ran through him, but Brian wouldn't allow himself to back down, "It's fine, you're fine, everything's fine. I just don't like staying in one place for long."

"Well, I guess that makes sense…" Alejandra replied, attempting to soothe his blatant discomfort before her next push, "but where are you gonna go after this? And why did you come here in the first place?"

Brian's back muscles tightened and his next words did little to mask his defensiveness, "Look, does it really matter?"

"Well, I just wanted to know why you came to save me."

"Why wouldn't I? You needed help and they need a punch in the teeth, so it just seemed the right thing to do," Brian answered as if the question was somehow nonsensical.

"Guess that makes sense too...It's the heroic thing to do after all."

Those last few words stuck out in his mind as being far too direct to be a coincidence. "Yeah, I guess so, but why would you phrase it like that?"

"Huh?"

"You said it would make sense for me to do the heroic thing, why'd you think that about me?"

Alejandra left a pregnant pause as she thought of an answer. Very briefly, she considered trying to craft another lie, but she quickly decided against it. It was not a decision made based on her previous failure in the dubious art of weaving deceit, but simple human decency. Brian quite obviously had no desire to talk of his past, but she herself had no desire to hide her knowledge of it from the young man who had helped save her in more ways than one.

"Because I know who you are, Brian. I thought a boy in a blue hoodie jumping in to save the day sounded familiar, so I looked up an old news story after I knew you were fine here. And... well, this is probably a bad thing to say and it won't make much sense either, but thanks for showing me how to be a hero. It's...a good feeling, you know?"

Another sting of guilt daggered at Brian's heart. While she was hardly a master wordsmith, he could tell Alejandra had spoken in earnest and with no hidden feelings. Most surprising to him was the girl's choice of words, _showing_ her how to be a hero. He didn't even bother to even consider asking her what she meant, he already knew. They were the same strange and simple feelings that drove him to take the Doomfist those many months ago. While his position was still set in stone, something as simple as her tone of voice made him reconsider his own.

"Well...that's nice to hear, thanks."

Slipping his hoodie on, he felt centered for the first time since rising up from near-death. He had never gone a day since the events at the museum without wearing it, even in the heat of summer. It was fortunate for Brian that his charm was not well designed for its actual purpose of keeping people warm, but then again, that was only fitting given he only continued to wear it due to a bizarre turn of luck. Reinvigorated, he asked a question of his own, "Alejandra, right?"

"Huh?"

"That's your name, right? It's what the doctor said."

"Oh, yeah, that's my name. You can call me Alé if you want."

"Yeah sure, but do you mind if I ask why those guys were attacking you?"

"Oh, not at all, but it's a long story and I can't say my part in it was all that interesting. I only heard about the good bits through hearsay."

"I still wanna hear it. Only fair since you already know my story."

While Alejandra's tale was a short one, it opened a floodgate of conversation with the would-be hero that lasted well over half an hour. The normally terse boy lit up over the story's course, commenting on Los Muertos seeming difference in authority at the time, attempting to boost the girl's self-confidence when she put herself down for her lack of action at that time, and even bouncing off her wild theories of Soldier 76's true identity. "Look, I know he was tough and all, even with all that gene sh-stuff, but come on…They couldn't find him after that crap went down and that was them at their best back then. Besides, even if he was still alive, wouldn't he be working with Overwatch now that they're back?", he had said. "I know what I saw," she had retorted, "and this was like almost a year ago, so he might be for all we know. I mean, a lot of the news you hear about him is stuff like breaking into old Watchpoints and things like that. And hey, with all the crazy crap that happens these days, it's not out of the question." This talk transitioned smoothly into one about Brian's own time of peril and glory at the museum, one more about his own thoughts and feelings during and after it all rather than the events themselves. Though dodging the finer details about the aftermath of that day and some of the more personal questions, most notably those of his family, his evasive speech raised the eyebrow of the baker's daughter, who opted to hold her follow up questions for later out of respect. Not wanting to pressure him further, Alejandra instead noted a small rip in the arm of his hoodie to move the conversation elsewhere.

"That cut, you got that in the fight?"

"Yeah, against the one with the weird lookin' neck. I was gonna get it patched up once I got out of here."

"Well, I could do it for you. My mom taught me how to stitch things. I'm not all that good at it if I'm honest, but it's the least I could do."

"...Actually, could you teach me how to do it?"

"Oh uh, I guess, why?"

"Just to know how to do it. The whole reason I came down this far is to learn useful stuff."

"Oh, sure then, but I don't think I'll make much of a teacher."

"It's fine. It's still more than I know."

"Well, in any case, I don't have the tools for it, so we'll have to wait until later tonight for it."

In the back of Brian's mind throughout their entire conversation was a plot to escape his current situation. To him, staying and the hospital and feeding the girl's growing affection for him was a rock and a hard place. However, as they spoke the idea of spending more time with her became less and less of an unpleasant prospect to him.

"Oh. Can't I just come with you then, just to save time?"

"O-Oh, uh...I thought you said you were gonna leave as soon as you could?"

"...Well, to be honest, they said I wouldn't be able to bike out of the town. Said I'd pass out after a mile or two. I still want to leave, just 'cause I'm going stir crazy in here, but I don't think they'd let me out since I got nowhere to really go and they probably think I'm nuts or something."

"Oh, well I'm sure Mom would be fine with you staying, but we don't have any other rooms…"

Desperate to avoid the hackneyed suggestion he could feel her about to make, Brian offered his one of own naught but a half second after her words had begun to trail.

"I can sleep on the floor and pay rent for it if she wants."

"Oh no, you don't need to pay or anything, you've earned a place to stay after what you've done for me."

"It'd feel better to earn my keep…I could teach you how to fight better too if you want."

"Oh, really, you mean it? I don't think mom would like that, but I guess I wouldn't be much of a hero if I couldn't fight for it."

A nurse opened the door, ceasing all conversation as he explained himself.

"Sorry to bother you two, but it's time for your midday medication and lunch."

With a reserved look on his face, Brian turns back to Alejandra, "Well, guess that's a good place to cut it. Let's pick this up later, soon as we're able."

She smiled warmly, "I'd like that. I'll ask my Mom about having you over once I get back home."

"Sounds good, see you later"

Alejandra left the room, not seeing the slight smile Brian had failed to hold back.


	7. Chapter 7: Force Addiction

Chapter 7: Force Addiction

* * *

"So, Brian, let me get this straight...You seriously don't think a single one of Lucio's songs are any good? I know he sucks, but 'Minuano' is just fantastic."

"Dude, all he did was slow down the tempo and toss in some rejected acoustic guitar licks from a San Fran dumpster. J.D. Cronise is an artist, Lucio is an earless retard that records two omnics jacking each other on and puts it to a beat, the stupid retard."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize they just unfroze you from the twenties, Grandpa. Look he sucks, I'm willing to admit this, but even sucky musicians have at least one good song in them."

"This discussion is over, he sucks and we're already at the place, let's just grab some burritos and bounce."

It had been two days since Brian had been released into the care of Alejandra's small family, and four since he had woken up from death. He was still unsure how they had convinced the staff of Hernandez General to let him go considering his obvious status as a runaway, but the intricacies of Mexican healthcare law were very much not his forte. The only possible deciding factor that made sense to the would-be hero was his socializing with Alejandra. The many talks they had between his many tests and therapy sessions during his recovery must have made him appear far more sane than he had during his overview the Benedicto. Whatever the case, he was past the point of needing further medication, everything from this point could be handled naturally and he was more than happy to be free of the hospital.

The two hopeful heroes had become fast friends in this brief amount of time and likely would have even without a meeting as exhilarating as they had. Even so, this was the first time Brian had been so loose with his language in front of Alejandra, though he seemed to not notice this in the heat of the argument. By contrast, she had very much taken note of his lazy choice of words, though she took little offense at them. Brian had often held back his more colorful language around her, for reasons she could only assume were based on his heroic aspirations. She planned to press him on that later, for now she was more interested as to why this of all things brought out his vulgarity. The only other times he had been this passionate in his speech was when he spoke of his day of glory at the museum and of Overwatch in general, this was something worth following up on.

For now, however, food was the greater concern at the moment. Brian's dullness of taste had still not subsided and it likely never would, so he thought it best to roll with the punches and start adjusting one meal at a time. Alejandra was more than happy to aid him in this not only as an opportunity to spend to time with the heroic young man, but also for a chance at a meal not wrapped in the bakery's bread for once to sate her hunger. El Macho Taco, despite its less than classy name, was one of the finer local restaurants available to those on the same rung of the economic ladder as the pair.

"What wrong with eating here? It's nice out for once, I kind of just want to relax," she told the oddly impatient boy.

"Hey, I've had enough of just lying around. Never liked it before and I ain't looking to do more after all that time in the hospital," he replied.

"Well, where else did you plan to go? You said you already did your rounds while I was at school,"

"Always more and if there ain't, I'd just exercise or something."

"...Do you ever do anything that's not work?"

"...Not recently, no."

"Well, that's all the more reason to take our time. You need to relax for once in your life."

"How's that relaxing? Doing nothing ain't relaxing."

"Hey, it's better than work."

"No it ain't. Something being not bad and something being good ain't the same."

"What ki-" glancing away, Alejandra realized they had already reached the counter, "Oh, sorry, two beefy bean burritos for here, please," she politely ordered as she fumbled for her wallet.

"Three," Brian interjected as he pulled out a two hundred peso bill and turned it over to the cashier. "To go."

Alejandra pouted at the sight, both for what she saw as him infantilizing her and his stitchwork on his sweatshirt's arm. During her impromptu role as a sewing teacher, Brian had followed her instruction intently and performed to the best of his ability in all but one instance. He had been unwilling to wait for her to search for the proper shade of cobalt blue thread to match his prized article and instead used the much closer spool of ultramarine blue. "Hey, blue is blue," he had said when she first protested. Even now, the mismatch in color was aggravating to her, but much like his coverage of their lunch, she could not keep that anger in her heart for long as she knew he meant no ill by it. After a few awkward glances, the employee simply shrugged and rang up the order of the only one offering payment.

Finally retrieving her wallet while Brian gathered his change and the receipt, Alejandra drew a fifty bill and a ten coin. As they stepped out of the line, she handed them over with a subtle insistent twitch of the eyebrow. The edge of Brian's still lips twinged in understanding, and he accepted the payment with not so much as a sound.

"What kind of logic is that?" Alejandra continued where she left off, "How is not feeling bad not better than feeling bad?"

"That's not...Okay, for me, just sitting around is a bad feeling. When I get tired on my bike, I don't stop, I slow down. Cause when you stop, that's when the pain hits you and you won't want to keep going 'cause that'll just make it worse."

"...That explains a lot about you, actually."

Desperate to avoid the questions he could feel coming, Brian quickly changed the subject. "That's why I could never get into Hearthstone. Too much waiting with nothing to do." Alejandra wanted nothing more than to break down his facade and learn just why he left his home behind, but a headlong assault would be pointless. Instead, she played along with his obvious misdirection, it was the first time he had been the one to start a topic not related to his heroic path.

"What do you mean? You're supposed to be planning your next turn during your opponent's. That's what keeps it from being boring." While she had been hoping for an opportunity to ask him about his odd reaction to her musical question, it could wait for later, he offered this topic up freely for a reason.

"That don't make sense," Brian continued, "you come in with a plan and you always plan for that plan to work. Only time it can't work should be down to bad luck. Can't plan for that."

"...You play Hunter, don't you?"

"Some reason why I shouldn't have?"

"Yeah, there is. It ta- You know what, let's find a seat, this is gonna take a while."

"Why? Our stuff's gonna be ready in a few minutes, might as well stay here for it."

"Hey, grab and go if you want, but I'm eating here."

"Come on, you know I'm not gonna just leave you alone."

"Well, then help me find a seat so I can lay some wisdom down on you while we're waiting."

For most, being forced into such an option would be beyond frustrating, but in this particular instance, Brian couldn't help but smile as she turned her back to begin their search. Ever since their first meeting at the hospital, the would-be hero was worried by her timid speech, expecting her to be an obsessive sycophant by this introduction. Their conversation afterward of her past encounter with Inigo and her feelings surrounding what Brian had shown her emotionally in his interference only furthered his anxiety, knowing those feeling all too well himself and what they led to. Regardless of how petty this argument was, he was glad he had judged her wrong. Weaving past several unoccupied seats within the building, Alejandra pointed out an unshaded table outside and staked a claim.

"It takes the fun out of the game," she continued as they took their seats on barely padded black metal chairs, "the whole point is to win with strategic thinking and having an actual plan. Going face every turn just kills all of that, for both players."

"Hey, if it works, it's a good strategy. Besides, I don't make enough to spend a thousand bucks on a sixty-year-old game just to play one half-decent deck."

"Oh come on, it only takes like four hundred pesos to get enough dust to get a good mid-game deck."

"Yeah, but it's free to play, why would I spend money when I don't have to?"

"Why shouldn't you spend money on it? People worked hard on it, so they expect some compensation."

"What people? Everyone who worked on the game is dead by now."

"Well...Yeah, but-"

"And besides, this is a pointless argument. I only played the game for like four or five hours before going back to Starcraft 6, a strategy game that's actually good."

"Starcraft **6** is a good game? Is that really one you want to keep that one on the record?"

"Well not the story mode, obviously, but multiplayer's not too bad anymore and custom maps are still great."

"Still not better than 5."

"Hey, no argument there, but you don't gotta wait ten minutes to get a match in 6."

"That's not exactly the game's fault."

"Kind of is. Toss weren't exactly fun to play or play against in 5."

"Toss were only boring if you only went for Photon Cheese, play anything else and they're way more fun. Besides, if you can zerg rush right, you can shut that down before it starts."

"You think I bought this Hoodie on the off chance it'd ever drop below seventy back home?"

"...Please don't tell me you're a hellrusher."

"No way dude, everyone sees that one coming. You gotta put everything into Siege Tanks and Marines and maybe some Warhounds if it goes that long, zone them out of camps, then surround their main base and start shelling and sending in Medivacs at their line when they try to charge the tanks."

"And...how is that less cheese than Photon Rush?"

"'Cause not everyone does it." "Okay, now you're jus-"

"Order 37!" the cashier announced. Only just managing to hear it over the bustle of fellow customers within the store, Alejandra left her seat.

"You better come up with a real argument by the time I'm back." she told Brian only semi-sarcastically as she went to collect their reason for coming.

"Alright." Brian replied with a slight chuckle under each syllable.

It was an utterly pointless argument and the two of them knew it, but beyond the words, each found a deeper meaning. Alejandra valued the small glances into his personality and his growing familiarity with her, while Brian was still simply glad that she was willing to challenge him. Despite his rising respect for the girl, his plan had not changed. He still had every intention of returning to the road once he was medically well enough for it. Begrudged as he was to admit it to himself, the doctors were very much correct with their judgment that he would not be able to leave the city limits without risking death. Even during his return to his regular early morning courier work, he felt a stinging headache where he once felt only mild fatigue. All he could now is work through it with time and effort and with an all too familiar call, an opportunity for the latter presented itself.

"Hey, white boy!" shouted an angered and purposeful, but cracking voice.

His body tensing and tingling in preparation, Brian turned his head to size up his soon to be opponent. To his mild disappointment, the would-be hero saw a boy closer to Alejandra's age than his own clad in simple, albeit thuggish, clothing of loose fit and dull color. His hair was short and styled to fit his low-class style of clothing, but unfortunately for him, his still maturing face was very much at odds with this style.

"You the cracker that shot that Muertos?" another voice of similar cadence inquired as its owner entered Brian's sight.

This one was noticeably older and more importantly, taller and better built than his counterpart. Though the duo matched in style, the elder one clearly being a better fit for it, neither wore the colors and insignia of the gang that ruled these streets.

Brian understood their purpose almost immediately, he had run into many cut from the same cloth not long after his name made the news after the Museum. While the near-universal revilement of Talon kept him free of harassment from the many gangs of Oakland, the occasional hooligan trying to make a name for themselves tried their hand against his. It was no different here, the two thugs clearly intended to trade his hide for a place of power in Los Muertos. Their choice to attack him in such a public place, coincidence or otherwise, worked into this plan as it left more than enough witnesses to corroborate their story to the underground.

Their boldness in picking their fight with him here surprised Brian, even if it did have its advantages for them. On his road from Dogtown to Dorado every other criminal he had faced, in self-defense or otherwise, had the common sense to commit their ills in seclusion. Turning a brief glance to El Macho Taco's interior, the courier could tell that even the locals found this a strange sight, though not strange enough for them to scramble to phone the police or even pause their meals. " _Just like home…_ " Brian thought, " _Shit like this happens every day. Not like it matters, I'll be beating their asses either way."_ He slowly stood to face the two challenges a put on a facade that fit his self-appointed role.

"Depends on who's asking," he said with atypical smugness and bravado. " _Might as well make this thing official_."

"The badasses that're gonna put your ass in the ground!" the short one proclaimed in an attempt to top the would-be heroes' forced boasting.

"You sure this pissboy's even the real deal?" questioned the taller one.

"He's a white boy in a hoodie, that's what the story was, right? Even if he's not, we might as well beat his ass anyway," the short thug retorted.

A stiff wind blew down the street and across Brian's face, letting his bangs flutter and dispelling the duo's doubts.

"Look at that, Raf!", the short one chimed in as he pointed at the distinctive mark of a bullet scar on Brian's forehead. "This is definitely the prick got those three in the clink!"

"Friends of yours?" Brian continued putting on his front.

"Oh, they're about to be!" the short one approached menacingly as he began to redundantly explain their plans. "We're gonna be sitting pretty after we bring in your faggo-"

A swift punch put an end to the short thug's latest insult and likely his entire ability to speak. The courier's fist forced the thug's jaw shut at a most inopportune time for the latter party, letting a pincer of teeth sever a section of his tongue. As stifled screams and gushing blood left the short one's mouth, Brian silently congratulated himself for his expert timing in the immeasurably short time in between his next strike. A chopping elbow directly onto his left ear forced the thug to his knees and his jaw open, sending a splatter of blood against Brian's pant legs. The sounds of pain let the courier know his opponent still managed to grip onto consciousness and quick stomp to the head brought an end to his pain. It was over in barely more than a second, but the rush of battle still flowed through the would-be hero.

"Marco!" the thug named Raf shouted in worry once Brian's quick work was done.

"He should have watched his tongue," Brian quipped, relishing the fact he finally had an opportunity to use that line after 2 months of waiting.

"You just killed my brother!" Raf raged.

"What? He's not dead. That wasn't enough for that, right?"

In a brief moment of doubt and panic, Brian broke the illusion and shot to the ground to confirm what he hoped to be true. To his relief, Marco was still breathing through the bleeding had only grown worse.

"Right. He's fine." Brian assured as he pulled a fistful of napkins from his table's dispenser and placed it on the severed section of Marco's tongue. "But you won't be," he threatened as he assumed his persona once more.

"That's my line, shitstain!" The tall thug challenged as the blade of his folding knife sprung out with a flick of his thumb.

This did little to phase Brian, he would have been more surprised if one of the duo wasn't carrying a knife. Growing up in the first American state to ban guns within its borders since the Armstrong Act, Brian was used to seeing a wide variety of knives in the hands of every miscreant on the street, including his own at times. From broken glass wrapped in duct tape to imported ballistic knives, edged weaponry was such a common threat that basic self-defense against it was tied into his middle school curriculum.

As the thug assumed an underhanded grip with an open-palmed defensive stance, he continued his threats, "I'm gonna cut you up, you white ass cocksucker!"

Brian easily kept his cool in the face of another verbal assault, knowing from experience that these attempts at intimidation meant that his attacker was the one that doubted their chances at success. Brian walked from the near motionless body of Marco and back to the table, stopping within arms reach of one of the chairs and uttered a threat of his own.

"Then come get me."

The thug paused at this boast, angered but not foolish enough to be blind to the courier's plan. He had already forsaken the knife's great advantage of surprise in a fit of anger, he could not afford to make another mistake and he knew it. Inching forward, he attempted a boast of his own, "Nah, you step up first, pussyboy!" "I'm not the one with something to prove," Brian lied as he gestured behind himself to the crowd he did not need to see to know was there. Caught between his pride and a hard place, the thug's own persona of confidence began to crack and he was forced into action by the former.

Tightening his grip, he shouted "Fine! I'll prove how much of a bitch you are!" before charging forward with killing intent.

Brian couldn't contain his satisfaction at things turning out just as planned. He took the nearby chair in his hands with flashing teeth and used the reach of its legs to his advantage. The metal legs collided with the thug's left arm long before the knife was anywhere near its desired range and the blow was so fierce that the thug had staggered to the ground, but to Brian's shock, it had not stopped him. Although Raf was surprised by the strength of the half-sized hero, he had braced himself for the attack well enough to remain composed for a counter attack. Rising from his semi-grounded position, he thrust his blade at Brian's stomach. Jumping back as soon as he had mentally registered the failure of his plan, Brian only just managed to dodge the lethal stab at the cost of a tear in the pocket of his hoodie. The steel chair made a wretched squeal as it dragged across the concrete to follow its wielder even as it left his grip.

Gritting his teeth at his failure, the thug switched to a reverse icepick grip and slashed at Brian's chest. Narrowly dodging the steel once again, Brian thought back to a basic principle of knife defense, the GUN method. As his opponent's arm bent back for another stab, Brian swiftly evaded to his back and grabbed him by the wrist and forearm, keeping the threat in check. Wasting no time, he followed with a powerful knee strike to his upper thigh and repeated kicks to the backs of his knees to rob him of balance. Once he had submitted to the pain and began to topple, Brian slammed his body into the table, the shock undoing the weapon from his grasp. Taking the knife in his hands to keep the thug from reclaiming it, Brian still struggled to keep his enemy in control regardless. Responding to the repeated kicks to the shins and toes with skull bashes with the knife's handle did little in the face of the thug's persistence. After the unmistakable pain of his big toenail splitting apart bolted its way up his leg, Brian thought it more than permissible to use the weapon's business end.

The blade plunged down, penetrating the bone and sinew of the thug's hand and slipping through a conveniently placed hole in the table's mesh design. Retaliation ceased as the thug cried out in pain, only to be silenced once the would-be hero took the napkin dispenser and sent it crashing into his nose. Unrelenting, Brian struck once again at his forehead with the crude weapon and again with a sharp elbow to the back of his neck and again with a brutal knee to the genitals. The once boastful thug had grown too tired and bruised to do more than moan in his agony as he hung pinned to the table. Satisfied with his work, Brian pulled out the blade with a subtle twist of spite and Raf fell to the ground.

Brian didn't know when it had begun or who had been one to start it off while he lumbered in the haze of fading adrenaline, but there was no mistake the sound of cheering. Not every customer of El Macho Taco came to the windows to witness his latest glory, but all who had, many of them children his brother's age, added to the thunder in his honor. It was only natural for heroism to be rewarded with admiration, but receiving it was still a strange feeling to Brian. Even when he was nothing more than another courier, he never understood why he should get special praise simply for doing his job, though he could not deny he enjoyed the strokes to his ego. However, in the context of his actions, this praise seemed almost like an insult. He had not come here to right any sort of wrong, he was assaulted while going about his day and merely defended himself. Worse still was that his audience had been just that, an audience. When the duo had first approached, they barely paid any notice to him being harassed and threatened, only taking notice once the encounter grew entertaining for them. " _Pricks_.", Brian thought, " _Real classy to sit there and film instead of helping._ "

However, it was one among them that didn't praise him that upset him the most. Alejandra simply stood there with a bag of their greasy order in hand, staring with horror in her eyes. Brian didn't understand what he could have done to make her act this way, " _Maybe things got a little bloody, but they were asking for it. She's lived here forever and she did shoot that one guy, shouldn't she be used to this?_ " Folding the knife closed, he placed it in his pants pocket and reached for the dispenser once more. Taking another handful of napkins, he placed them in the thug's wounded palm and yet another handful over the back of his hand. Taking one more to clean his own hands, he looked back to Alejandra, pleased to see her odd look of repugnance had faded ever so slightly along with the applause.

Walking back toward her, he tried to brighten her bizarrely diminished spirits.

"Well, you were right. I do need backup plans."

His weak jest only worsened her mood, even if it was by but a twinge of her face. Moving the conversation forward with an awkward cough, he tried once again.

"Did, uh, anyone call the cops or anything yet?"

"I think so…" she finally spoke in the meek tone Brian despised.

" _It's not like I did anything wrong,_ " he wanted to say but stopped himself just short of it, for nothing more than his instincts telling him not to upset her further.

"Hey, it'll be fine. Look on the bright side, you got what you wanted, now we have to stay."

"W-what? Why?"

"Well, they're gonna track us down to ask questions anyway, just like the hospital, might as well get it over with."

"I guess so…"

"Hey, come on, it's not like they're anywhere close to dead. Let's get a new seat, how 'bout that one?" He pointed to an unoccupied table on the opposite end of the courtyard. Silently and reluctantly, she nodded her head and followed.

Taking a seat once again, Brian dove into the bag, retrieving some much-needed energy. Alejandra, despite her self-confessed hunger beforehand, didn't so much as look at the bag. Her attention was fixed on Brian, still with the same look of repulsion. Feeling the eyes on him, he turned his own attention, forcing her to change hers over to his fallen enemies. Brian still hadn't the faintest idea of why she would be reacting this way, he was well within his rights to do what he had, legally and morally, as far as he was concerned. For once, he was the one who wanted to press her on her feelings but now was clearly not the time. With a slight sigh, he took a bite of his well-earned meal. The juices flowed, the texture was rich and the spice had its kick, but the taste was just not the same.


	8. Chapter 8: Truth

Chapter 8: Truth

* * *

It was a quarter past four when they returned from their trip; a good half hour past what they had promised. Alejandra hadn't made so much as a sound on the short walk back to her home and hadn't taken a single bite of the food she so desired before. While Brian had devoured his part of the order, he too remained silent on their way after the brief round of questions from the authorities. He still could not fathom why she was so upset by his actions, being a victim of similar acts of random violence herself. Even the police had offered him some praise in his apprehension of the young criminals without any injuries that would last after a round of biotics treatment and the march of time. His own brother had been through worse in the incident that put him in an arm cast, an event the ended up leading the both of them to the San Francisco Overwatch museum in a moment of pity he had for his young brother. Even now the irony of that amused him, but it did little to soothe the sting of Alejandra's mysterious disappointment in him.

Finally walking through the door of _Panadería Las Nieblas_ , her family's bakery, they were lucky to find only a light bustle of business in their way. Alejandra's mother was already trapped in another routine exchange over the daily specials and only just managed to notice the pair returning. Her first name was Meche, according to a comment he'd once overheard during business, but that mattered little to Brian, he rarely referred to people by their names no matter how familiar they were. Her brow furrowed upon sighting the would-be hero, who now realized why Alejandra had been so engrossed with her phone while he had stepped away to explain the situation to the authorities. This unpleasant glance lasted half a second before it shifted back to a neutral expression aimed at the customer.

Brian had expected to have an uncomfortable and awkward conversation over his apparent mistake, but he would prefer it be face to face with Alejandra and no one else. Regardless, none of them were in any position to have such a talk.

The mundane discussion finally over, an order rang out just as Alejandra thought she had snuck by unnoticed.

"Alé!", her mother said

Turning to face her mother, the baker's daughter could do little to hide her conflicted emotions as her eyes could only just make contact with her mother's. Taking a moment to read her daughter's feelings carefully, seeing an all too common sorrow mixed with a myriad of other sour emotions, Meche gave the same instruction she always had to take her daughter's mind off her troubles.

"We need the sweet bread sorted and bagged," she ordered, "you should start working on it now while your cocoa is warming up."

It was a simple and proven method to ease Alejandra's worries. Sorting was a simple enough task to be stress-free, but involved enough to take her mind off her troubles and the role of the cocoa was self-explanatory. Finally making a steady lock in her gaze and prostrated upon hearing this news, Alejandra's voice finally rose above a murmur for the first time in nearly an hour as she simply replied with an eager, "Ok."

Alejandra set to her familiar task with an almost desperate speed. She slid through the light foot traffic and into the spacious kitchen behind the business counter. While Brian lacked an understanding of this common situation, he was glad something had lifted her spirits. Meche's clear ire returned when she looked at Brian. Still oblivious as to what he had done to deserve all this, he reserved to discover why on his own once Alejandra had gathered herself. With a few brief silent stutters, he made an attempt at reassuring the woman who knew more of what he had done than he did. "I'll talk with her about it when she's done." Alejandra's mother wasn't given much of an opportunity to respond as another customer approached with their own monotonous questions, but she managed to reply with an icy sneer. "Good, that's what she had planned too." With a pause and a stiff nod, Brian moved on as if they had agreed on anything.

Rushing down the stairs with an almost indecent haste, he entered their basement. The cluttered and dank room acted as little more than a spacious storage room with a small area set aside for the washer and dryer. As his benefactors lacked a spare room for him to rest in, he took a seat atop his beat up sleeping bag in the only free space they could find for him and set his back to the wall. Finally in a position where he could find relative peace, his emotions began to twist and turn between his many ambivalent feelings, empathetic one microsecond and frustrated the next. He could not help but feel robbed by of the sanguine sense he had always felt after victory against the objectively wicked, but one look from the baker's daughter left him with nothing as his reward for heroism. Staring down to the splatter of red still on his pant leg, he considered how he might explain the event to Alejandra.

" _It can't be that simple, can it? I've seen guys messed up worse than that back home, so she's gotta have seen just as much. Was it a too soon sort of thing? If it was in the leg I'd get that, but one in the hand doesn't make much sense. Besides, he pulled the knife on me, what part of that didn't she get? He got what he deserved. Then again, she did seem new to this, which also makes no sense._ "

No angle of it was logical to him. Alejandra was not someone who was ignorant of the need for violence to match violence, yet was still acting as if she was shocked by a level of it below what she had done to save him. There were few who Brian truly respected and Alejandra made that list by matching the courage he had shown many months ago on the day they met. Even if this incomprehensible disgust ended up being as simple as her becoming queasy at the sight of blood, that would only heighten his respect for her, even if he would understand her significantly less.

" _Shooting a guy is way worse than anything I've ever done, so what's so wrong with a stab?_ "

Whatever the case, it would be a bad idea to speak with this bloody reminder still on his person. The tear in his lucky charm would have to wait for later, as Alejandra held control of all the supplies he needed for it. Pulling his duffel bag closer, he withdrew a replacement pair of pants and silently cursed that the law demanded he turn over Raf's folding knife. It was a new custom for Brian, one he only started to keep not long after he passed through Los Angeles, where he would keep any blade pulled against him as a trophy. As of now, they numbered low enough to barely need two hands to count, but his true concern for the moment was the two remaining pairs of pants. Khaki wasn't his preferred color, but as his only other choice was a black pair, given his ultimately wise decision to travel light, it was the superior option. Unlacing his shoes, removing his regular pair of grey, and replacing them at the fastest speed his awkward position within the room allowed him, he returned to his thoughts as he took the stained pair to the sink across from the washer.

" _Not exactly easy to apologize when you don't know what's wrong, but I can't just ask her, can I?_ "

Experience told him to run the tap on cold, given his questionable familiarity with this situation. He held the stain directly under the chilling flow. He had done what he could to absorb the red splatter with a clutch of napkins before the police had arrived at El Macho Taco, but even then he knew that wouldn't be enough. Reaching for a bar of cracked soap looked that likely hadn't been used in years, he rubbed the damp cloth with vigor for some time. With a slap to the lever, the water shut off and he walked a pace away to cupboard on the floor, taking a near-empty miniature spray bottle of stain remover. " _I got nothing to go on, so I'm gonna have to, but there's no way she's gonna like it._ " After a generous application that ended with the pump sputtering and a brief moment of time to let it soak, he dug through the cupboard again, finding the Ammonia solution placed disconcertingly close to a jug of bleach. Carefully pouring a small measure of the diluted mixture into the provided cup, Brian soaked a cotton swab and delicately dabbed it onto the sullied area. Once the solution had run out, he opened the lid of the washer and hit the button for automatic wash, trusting the sensors to give proper treatment. " _Feels like a waste to do just one thing, but it's better than leaving a reminder._ "

Two hours ago, Brian never imagined that he would leave a fight with regret, but one simple look in Alejandra's eyes was enough to set the feeling of doubt in his heart. He almost had to remind himself that they had known each other for less than a week with how quickly he had gained a genuine liking and respect for the girl due in no small part to her saving his life. There were limits to this respect, of course, as her current attitude implied a wish for Brian to stop his attempts at heroics, something that he would not do for anyone. He never had been the sociable sort before, so feelings this complex were fairly new to him, and he could not wrap his head around any part of it.

" _Guess there's nothing for it, I'll just have to look like the asshole and ask what I did wrong._ "

 ** _..._**

Several minutes later, many of which were spent waiting for the remainder of her mysterious shock to wear off, he ascended one flight of stairs to learn Alejandra had finished her task from a still disappointed Meche and ascended one more to accomplish his own. Her door was shut tight with only the faint melodies of mid-fifties soft-rock to tell him the room was occupied. Though the genre fell out of public favor in the early 2000's, the early fifties brought about a sudden and much-needed revival that lasted well into the sixties before being usurped by Pop and Electronic once again. Brian recognized the song, for all blood-hatred he had-and was meant to have- for San Franciscans as an Oaklander, he had to admit he had a fondness for their street performers taste in music, save for the neo-indie bands, he felt they were experimenting for the sake of experimenting rather than out of true artistic vision. Deciding it best to ease into the unpleasant meat of the conversation, he pulled his knowledge of the genre to the front of his mind as he softly knocked on the door.

"Hey, it's me." Met with no response, he continued with some awkwardness. "Uh, 'Diamond Wind', right?"

"Yeah.", she answered with most of her prior feeble tone diminished and replaced with one of intrigue. "You a fan?"

"Yeah, but I think they went downhill after Stones & Stardust. Just wasn't the same without Joseph"

"Yeah…" With it clear that his attempts at easing in failed, he said what needed to be said. "...Can I come in so we can talk about, you know, _it_?"

Silence fell again as she considered and finally answered.

"...Okay."

Near inaudible footsteps approached the door and Brian stepped back to make room out of some much need courtesy. Looking into each other's eyes for the first time since the incident at the Taco shop, both wore the same expression of conflicting determination and unease.

Brian never had been inside her, or indeed any girl's, room before and he was relieved to find she avoided most of the female stereotypes he had been led to believe. The closest thing to concerning was an old Overwatch poster pinned to the same wall as her bed, but he had owned a few himself before their downfall and saw no problem with revering them now. There was little else that stuck out, at least to Brian, she kept the room very clean and organized with all other decoration being fairly generic map paintings and family photos. Notable in the photos, however, was the lack of a clear father figure. He had seen the man in an old wedding photo hung in the main hall, making it clear where Alejandra had gained most of her sharper, more intelligent facial features while her fairer ones had come from her mother before she had been robbed of the smile from that photograph. Given Dorado's reputation of gang violence, Brian could only assume his lack of presence was likely due to an all too common tragedy like the one that had befallen him the day he arrived in Dorado.

" _Just one more way none of this makes sense. She should be happy I took out those scumbags_."

Once he had fully crossed the threshold, Alejandra slowly closed the door behind him. In any other set of circumstances, this would cause Brian more unease then he was in now, but he understood and respected her want for privacy here. As she took a seat on her bed. He would have preferred to stand, but he figured it better to be on her level, avoiding any body language that would imply a sense of superiority. In a show of equality without risking an uncomfortably intimate distance, he pulled over the chair by her computer desk and sat down. As she reached for her phone to silence the music, Brian interjected.

"You can leave it, 'Crimson Sunlight"'s kind of fitting here."

Tentatively agreeing with him, she set her phone back down, allowing the somber guitar and quiet vocals to set the tone.

The discomfort was palpable. Several seconds passed in silence as neither knew how to start.

"Why did you come here?", Alejandra interjected.

The break in silence surprised them both.

"I...just thought we should talk about what happened" he explained.

"No, I mean why did you come all this way. It's almost two thousand miles between here San Francisco."

"Uh, Oakland."

"Well, whatever, that's not the point. Why go that far? If this is all about you doing the right thing, why did you have to leave your home and country to do that?"

"I just heard there were a lot of problems here and I wanted to do what I could" Brian answered with perplexed and reluctant honesty.

"But why _here_? There had to have been plenty of towns full of crime that you passed through, I mean, heck, didn't you say it's really bad back where you're from? Why come here, specifically?"

Brian was unsure how to answer,

"Well, uh, I thought it'd be a good goal, otherwise I'd just be wandering. I don't like staying in one place for too long anyway."

"That doesn't explain anything!" The irritation rising in her voice, "Why come to Mexico at all? A-" Alejandra suddenly paused, reconsidering. A hunger for knowledge and a fear of the suspected answer warred in her mind before the harsher feeling won out. "Are you running from something?"

Brian had been dreading the day when any query surrounding the second most important decision of his life came to light and yet, he did not try to run from it. She had done more than enough to earn more answers for him and he he no reason not to trust her now, even if it was clear she suspected the intentions of his journey were less than pure. Even in the short time they had known each other, he knew her not to be one to betray another's trust easily and even if things somehow went for the worst she would not try to have him kicked back to the curb. Just wise enough not to neglect this intuition, he told her of his less than fine reasoning for leaving his home behind.

"Guess I am. I left because there was nothing for me there. The most I grew in fifteen years was in that punch. It's mainly a symbolic thing, leaving behind the past and all that. Didn't just up and leave, of course, took about two and a half weeks to decide that. And don't worry about my brother, he'll do fine. He ain't like me. He actually has a chance at living normal." Alejandra's face was utterly still, locked in irritation, after his explanation. Brian's, however, was twinging with concern as he tried to decipher her feelings.

"You left...just because you felt like it? Because you just didn't like where you lived?", she asked with growing concern mix with her previous ire, more worried by the second that the darkest of her suspicious may have been true.

"Don't say it like that. If I was gonna do this whole hero thing I had to do it somewhere where I wouldn't get shot or tossed in a ward by my parents."

"But you did get shot. It's the first thing that happened when you got here."

"...I never said it was a good plan," he said with a sardonic grin.

Alejandra said nothing after his misguided attempt at humor, too flabbergasted to even fully absorb all of what he had said before it.

"Well, th-", Brian hastily tried to backpedal before being cut off just as swiftly.

"You can't just live like that...it's insane."

More confused than offended by the accusation, Brian rebutted. "Why, what's so wrong about it?."

More offended than confused by the rebuttal, the baker's daughter continued without a hint of humor in her voice.

"You ran away from home and biked all the way to another coast trying to fight criminals in one of the most crime infested countries in the world and you're telling me you're completely sane? You can't just throw your life away like that, you're family must be terrified for you!"

The little patience left on Brian's face left in an instant with the end of her speech and he began one of his own with an almost threatening tone.

"They don't care. They never even bothered to post about me leaving. Even if I told them not to in that letter I left, they should have cared enough not to listen. It's not like they ever wanted me there anyway, they probably didn't even notice I left. Hell, after the museum, you know what they said? 'What were you thinking?' Not 'Well done', not 'Thank god you're alive', nothing. After that, I started making plans, started delivering to places out of the city, learned how the homeless shelters worked, tried sleeping outside without telling anyone, started picking fights with other street rats. Soon as I felt ready, I left a note with my brother and took the first package that took me out of Oakland and just started wandering from there. Now I just do what I did when we met, world needs heroes and all that, right?"

Deceit was not a field Alejandra had any skill in performing herself, but she was quite adept at seeing it in others and saw none in Brian. She could not truly know his pain, despite how cold her mother may have been to others on occasion, she had given her nothing but love and support, even if it seemed like she was babying her at times. Worse still, was the obvious lack of emotional comprehension that Brian had displayed which Alejandra could only attribute to this poor home life. Regardless of this lack of true understanding, her empathy gave her pause in asking the question she had intended to ask since his last fight had ended. No matter what tragedy may have happened in Brian's life, that didn't excuse him from what she suspected. With hesitant determination, she brought the conversation where she needed it to be from the beginning.

"Right, but that's the problem. I know you had it bad and you're trying to do the right thing, but the way you're doing it..." She sighed deeply as she risked asking the question she planned to ask from the beginning. "Brian...Do you like hurting other people?"

Shocked that it would even be a question, Brian answered with frank confusion.

"Uh, no. Why?"

Conversely, Alejandra was very much shocked that this would be a question.

"You don't know!? You were smiling during that whole fight at El Macho!"

"I was?"

"Yes! It was creepy, you had a grin on your face while you were stabbing that guy!"

"I did?"

It wasn't true regret or self-disgust that he felt, but mere surprise. He very much enjoyed the surge of adrenaline and held the meaning behind each fight up with almost sacred reverence, but the fact that he let that show on his face was something he had never realized.

"Well, you don't have to worry," Brian assured, "It's not a sadism thing. I just like fighting. It's about the rush, not the pain."

Alejandra was nothing short of horrified by how casually he spoke of his taste for violence. "That's not much of a difference; it's still just beating people up for fun."

"How's that not different? It's fun from the action, not the effect. Besides, even if I hated fighting I'd do it anyway. You think I picked up the Doomfist cause I thought it'd be fun?"

There was little more than a hint of venom in Brian's voice then, so little that even he did not notice it. Alejandra however, could hear nothing but it. Even with his supposed higher goals, the poison underneath his breath told of something darker in his motivation. She was determined to know the source of this darkness and let her offense at his tone slip by unnoticed.

"Ok...but you have to realize how crazy this all is. Wandering around beating people up is no way to live."

"Well, why not? It saved your life and probably a few more, definitely gave them what they deserved, so what's the problem?"

"You can't just do that forever. If you keep this up you probably won't even make it to eighteen and even if you do, there's not much else you'll be able to do. You need to have a real plan. You can't just gun it now and expect everything to be fine forever."

"Look, what does it matter? I'll do what I can to help everyone on the road or die trying. I'm fine with that, why aren't you?"

Alejandra was something beyond disturbed by this, despite his noble goals and heroic ambitions, a deep-seated nihilism still clouded his soul. The cause of this almost assuredly came from some aspect of his parental issues, but she doubted that he would respond well to any direct questioning. Besides, how it happened was not as important as making sure it would not continue until the end he thought he was prepared for came. Brian believed that the debt between the two of them was already paid, but Alejandra sought more than that. They had saved each other in action, but she wanted to save him in spirit, just as he had done for her. " _It's what a hero would do and that's what we both need to be._ ", she philosophized internally. Despite his belligerence, Alejandra did all she could to hold out hope for him. She did not want to believe the young man who saved her life and showed her the hero she could be was just a psychopath who did the right thing as an excuse to do the wrong thing. Even if he was as she had dreaded, she had to try and pull him toward the right path and help him be the man she thought he was.

"A hero's more than just someone who beats up the bad guys," she finally continued in the softest tone she could manage, "they need to be someone who inspires others to be as great as they are. Kind of like how you inspired me to save you."

The shock from that emotional blow was evident as Brian physically recoiled in his chair. Swallowing hard and audibly, he did his best to defend his position. "Well...It's not like I'm not doing that. You just said so."

"But if it was just for the sake of fighting, that changes things. It's just...barbaric that way. You're better than that." Brian had a hard time processing what that meant, unaccustomed as he was to the concept of self-worth.

As he often did whenever he doubted himself, he returned to his memories of the museum. In particular, he searched for his memories of Tracer, or rather, how she carried herself that day. She had smiled the same way he unknowingly had, she had clearly enjoyed the action, but it was the precise moment that all faded away as soon as she saw him that was important to him now. The joy of battle left her the second she recognized the peril they were in, especially with her Chronal Accelerator, the harness of arcane technology that keeps her bound to reality while allowing her to exercise the post-human abilities her bizarre condition enabled, malfunctioned to the point of barely keeping her tethered to real time. It was not a fear of being lost outside the flow of time once again that had disheartened her or a fear that she would lose her own life without her temporal warping gifts, but a selfless concern for the lives of strangers. Upon reflection and with Alejandra's worries forcing the issue in his mind, Brian came to realize that this was concern he had never felt while on his road. Even when he had come to save her four days ago, her rescue was only an afterthought in his search from battle.

" _No, I'm not_." Brian nearly said out loud, only stopping to avoid upsetting Alejandra further. It was blatantly obvious, even to him, that she was legitimately concerned with his mental health, worried about him as a person rather than a would-be hero or, as her tone in the past had implied, as an ideal man. The resolve behind her words had given him pause and caused even him to doubt his mission. As much as he wished to believe he was right, there were only so many lies he could tell himself, something was broken inside his soul. The lives of others were secondary to the rush of victory and he had to fix that. Obfuscating that goal, however, was his lack of understanding why he felt this way. It was not as if he lacked empathy, particularly for those victimized by the petty violence of city crime, nor was he vainglorious in the pursuit of the fame heroics brought.

All this accusation, all this introspection, all this doubt; it dug up some deeply buried memories from the recess of Brian's mind. Remembering that time nearly eight years past against his will, he sunk deeper into the emotional canyon this conversation was. " _Was I smiling back then too? Is that why they sent me to that psych doctor?_ ".

The question lingered before he stepped out of it to realize how long they had gone on without a word spoken. Alejandra looked more unnerved than ever by the deathly silence, pushing Brian to desperation in search of words.

" _I can't just tell her. Can I?...No. Then she'd want me out for sure and...No. What am I thinking? She's not like that. She's just worried I'm nuts and she's right. Wouldn't be right to lie about this._ "

With a labored and apprehensive sigh, Brian began, part of him almost excited to confront this chapter of his past. "...Okay, I think I know what started all this...When I was eight, I had a bully at school, second-gen Chinese kid in my grade. He liked screwing with the other kids and power tripping if they ever pushed back on him. Mostly he stuck to the Mexican kids since, well, it's an Oakland thing, but he messed with me a lot since I was one of the only kids shorter than him. There's only so many times an eight-year-old can take being called a fag and, well, remember how I said I used to take kickboxing classes? Now that I look back on it, maybe I did go a little overboard, was probably smiling even then too. Not gonna lie, it felt good to win, even if it ended worse for me.

They sent me to a therapist in the end, pulled me out of kickboxing too and had me start taking medicinal. Hated that stuff, made me paranoid, so I just stopped and lied about it, not like my parents actually bothered to check. Long as they had an excuse, they didn't care. More or less gave up back then. Didn't help that Overwatch got shut down not long after, considering how much I used to watch those holovids back then. Still did what I could for my brother, trying to make him not like me, not that he need much for that. Didn't want to do that a lot of the time, since not fighting back got his arm broken by his own bullies. Ended up taking him to the museum to cheer him up, and you know the rest from there. Guess it just felt good to start winning again, so I just went with that feeling, fit well with the whole hero thing...Looks like I ain't doing great at it…"

Alejandra was again speechless as she listened, laser-focused on the would-be hero's tale, her emotions changing with every sentence with the only constant being her concern for him growing indefinitely. Despite her ambivalent feelings, she recognized that this was a massive breakthrough for him and the logical gaps she had found in his motivation suddenly made sense, even if parts of his explanation didn't. It was not that she doubted that he was telling the truth, only what he perceived as the truth, but that was not a hunch she could rely on, given how different their upbringings had been. However, admitting there was a problem was only the first step in solving it and just by looking at him, she could tell that doing so much as that had taken extreme effort on his part. Considering where they had started this talk and where they now found themselves in it, she took his sudden confession well, but with a grain of salt. She doubted anything would get him to stop him from fighting, not that she thought the action itself was the problem, but she was glad he was able to see the issue with how he went about it.

"Thank you for telling me.", Alejandra said after the nearly inaudible sounds of business below them had become truly silent.. "It's not that I want you to stop helping people, but if it's just for the fun of it then it's just...wrong."

"I know…", he sadly admitted. "But what else am I supposed to do? This hero stuff is the only thing that's made me feel like I've had a purpose, I don't like hurting people; I just have to."

He was entirely sincere about every aspect of that statement, and that only made Alejandra more worried for him. In a significantly less than flattering comparison, Alejandra was reminded of Rocky, a dog that once belonged to one of their neighbors down the road. A mutt whose only clear breed was that of an Australian Shepherd. Rocky would always rush straight toward a then eight-year-old Alejandra or any other passerby and bark incessantly at anyone who approached his owners home whenever he was off his leash. But for all his sound and fury, Rocky had never so much as scraped anyone with the teeth he flashed at every opportunity and whenever an angered voice called him back, he would come to heel with an eager smile, failing to see any problem. Brian, it seemed to her, suffered a more extreme yet slightly more aware version of this same train of thought; a loyal dog confused by the lack of a pat on the head for his self issued task.

Tracer never had been one of Alejandra's favored heroes before, but seeing what she had done to Brian, despite the pure intentions in her seven words, made her truly resent the woman.

With all that's been said and all that's been felt by the two, she let the silence hang again before changing the subject. There would be a time and place to push him to be a man as great as she believed him to be, but the first step had been taken, there was no need to risk tripping now.

"...Back before we got to the taco place when we were talking about music, why did you get so upset?"

"Oh, that? I just really hate how a lot a mainstream electronic is just a bunch of upbeat sounds, it's just lazy. Music's supposed to be an art not whatever that garbage is."

"I said I thought he sucked, I just thought that Minuano wasn't completely terrible."

"Not terrible and good are different things, you shouldn't settle for crap."

"I don't, I just thought it was a six out of ten instead of a two out of ten."

"You're still giving it too much credit, you have good taste in music, you shouldn't waste your time with trash. Like, I'll admit when I name-dropped J.D. Cronise I was just trying to look smart by referencing the oldest band I know, but at least it's actually good."

The conversation continued until the last of the sunlight disappeared behind Octobers grey cloud. Over its course, the sorrow in the tones of their voices faded, as if no revelations had come before. They both tried to push past it in the hopes of nothing damaging their friendship, they both even enjoyed the idle talk that followed it, but each of them knew things just would not be the same between them.


	9. Chapter 9: Rush

Chapter 9: Rush

* * *

It was a quarter past eleven when he arrived at Dorado's local Navarro Outpost again. Despite the insomnia Inigo's mismade bullet left him with, it was already his tenth visit of the day, having woken up at six am to get the first pick of last night's packages as he typically did. He still had yet to fully center himself after his talk with Alejandra two days ago. He had hoped more work would bring him some modicum of peace; the reparations between him and Alejandra had been slow after the initial shock. There was little he could do about it at the moment with both of his benefactors away at Sunday service, and what little he cared to remember of his upbringing led him to decline Alejandra's offer to come with them. "I'd rather focus on work right now.", he had said to her, unaware of how poorly he had phrased it.

He had no real disdain for religion despite the best efforts of his atheistic upbringing, but it was only natural for him to skeptical of the idea. On the whole, however, he was indifferent to matters of faith, too focused on the world in front of him to give a second thought to any possible world beyond. He could not remember a single thing in between the muzzle flash and waking up in a hospital bed, save for the knowledge that he'd had a bizarre dream despite not being able to recall a single detail about it.

However, the weight of his conversation with Alejandra was still taxing on his mind and plagued him with doubt. Just today, he had passed by three groups of young men who wore the skeletal stain of Los Muertos on their skin, and yet he had kept pedaling. They may not have been committing their usual criminal acts, but there were few in Dorado who would think less of him for assaulting them outright just for wearing the neon purple and stylized skulls of their gang. Despite doing so being akin to suicide, that was not the main thing that kept him from trying anything against them or any other lowlives he had seen on his work routes the past two days. Alejandra's words still rang in his head whenever the anticipation of combat nibbled at his brain, keeping him from what he relished and what he feared about himself.

" _She's right. It's not normal for me to be this way, but what am I supposed to do about it? We've both seen it enough, the world needs heroes, and that nearly always means someone who beats the crap out of someone who deserves it. I don't want to upset her by getting into more fights, but that's what the world needs, me enjoying it is just incidental._ "

He repeated that conversation with himself nine times now and it never did anything to quell his many doubts over his self-issued mission. Whatever the rights and wrongs about it may have been, he still sought violence for the sake of violence and a lust for blood is never satiated.

" _I can't be like that, but I need to be. I mean, I'll have to kill people someday if I keep this up, I just hope I don't enjoy that too._ " Shaking the deeper thoughts away, he settled back into the dubious comfort of his work. He rarely saw other couriers, at least to his knowledge, working in the town, likely for the same reason he was hired on so readily at Navarro; most people didn't want to risk the robbery. He first signed on simply because it was a free opportunity for work due to holdover labor laws in many states dating back to the Crisis that allowed for anyone past twelve to legally work, so long as it was not hourly or salaried. Before, he simply did not care if was dangerous or not, but after his rise to attempt heroism, he used as an easy way to find fights with the scum of the cities he passed through. But for now, it was just a job once again.

With three taps coded into his muscle memory, the machine outpost made an uncharacteristically loud series of grinds and clicks as the package dispensed into Brian's hands. It was yet another sign of how bad things were in this city; the outpost had clearly been raided at some point in recent history and the repairs were done quick and cheap, judging by the sounds he recognized after the same had happened to the outpost by his old home in Oakland. He could hazard a guess where the money spent for a more thorough repair went as he glanced passed the bulk of the dispenser. Looking at the opposite street to a rather inconspicuous car of marred silver, there sat an omnic behind the wheel, doing his best not to look blatantly at the courier. Tasks such as this, that would drive the average human mad with boredom, often found their way to the many less than fortunate omnics of the world. However, many companies, including Navarro itself, had few omnics within their ranks despite their obvious advantages over human workers due to the old wounds of the Omnic Crisis still feeling fresh in the minds of many.

Brian never did completely understand why, as all of the omnics alive today, to his knowledge, had nothing to do with the crisis, he had never even met one older than the age of twenty-four. In fact, the oldest one he was aware of was the Overwatch agent Jetfire, who would have been thirty-five today if it weren't for a thermite charge and the excellent throwing arm of a Talon terrorist. All the omnics he had met personally had been, more or less, regular people with only the robotic cadence of their speech setting them apart from their peers. However, he also failed to comprehend why omnic tolerance was pushed on people so violently.

California in particular was a bastion for such propaganda, so much that even as a young boy Brian found it patronizing, particularly when the overwhelming majority of omnics he knew of were far higher on the social ladder than anyone in his neighborhood. It seemed every other show online and every film coming out of Hollywood had an anti-omnic villain or involved a human-omnic romance in some way, which even many omnics found -and still find- offensive, given their own half of their history with humanity. Few people, human or omnic, were willing to make their gripes on matter public, but mob rule with the threat of ostracisation kept them silent. If the color of flesh made no one greater or lesser than any other, Brian did not understand why having skin of steel should make any difference on the social level.

In the end, it was not as if the watchmen's race mattered, the two of them would not be speaking either way. He knew company policy prevented him from talking with any security staff to avoid distracting or exposing them to criminals, but it was not as if he had any desire to speak with him or anyone else right now. His only concern was that Mrs. Gonzalez received her parcel soon enough to make his meager pay worth the time he was spending for it. Navarro paid by distance rather than time, taking five minutes or five hours to travel a mile would result in the same reward.

For the average courier, their pay was the equivalent of $9.80 an hour, but at Brian's typical speed and endurance, he usually managed $12.20 hourly. Though still not what most would consider a living wage, his spartan lifestyle made that more than enough to get by. He had just over five miles ahead of him, for most this would take nearly twenty-five minutes, but Brian had no desire to be considered average.

 _ **...**_

Twenty-one minutes later, he arrived at _Gonzalez' Haircuts and Styling_ with worn-out lungs. He was surprised at the sheer volume of local businesses in what he had explored of Dorado thus far, nothing at all like the major franchises dotting the streets of Oakland, save for Chinatown. Even the other cities in Mexico, those along the border, in particular, were much more corporate in their market districts. He could only assume it was related to what Alejandra had told him about Dorado's strange place on the coast made them unable to compete with their competing sister cities for vacationers and their high crime rate, even for a coastal city, was not a point in their favor. Regardless, his only business with them was this delivery, his hair had only just grown back to the shaggy length he enjoyed.

Stepping off his bike once he could control his breath, he approached the building pushing the bike alongside him to better navigate the rising foot traffic in his way. There were more bike racks then the center would ever need right across the street from the _Gonzalez'_ , but growing up in Oakland taught him the hard way not to leave his bike unattended for more than a second. Unsurprisingly, the rest of Dorado knew the same lesson, judging by the rack being completely bare. Using another of his hometown's lessons, he scanned the crowd carefully as he walked, watching for the subtle signs of a threat. Gang colors like the Los Muertos' purple, concealing clothing that would easily hide a blade meant for his ribs, aggressive movements as simple as another following behind him; he searched for all and more, almost disappointed at finding none of it. Guilt and doubt could not fully uproot his love of adrenaline, even if he wished it otherwise.

That clicked in his mind, " _Why does she still have me so hung up about this? It's not like I was nuts enough to beat up random people before, so it's not like I need to watch myself now. I'm just doing what's right, it's not my fault if I like it._ "

That was the ninth time he had tried to justify it to himself and the ninth time he had failed to make it convincing. It was not a complex problem, merely one that had no permanent solution other than the path he had already chosen. If he had stayed in California, he would live the life of a drone, all his wants and ambitions denied to him. If he continued on the road, he was sure to die long before he reached thirty and was destined to kill many others before that, and he was sure to enjoy it.

The thought to simply stay in Dorado and with Alejandra had come to him many times as a compromise of sorts, but that would change very little. The city was rife with violence to feed the urge and he was never truly comfortable with Alejandra demeanor toward him, ensuring not much would be different than if were to leave. It's not as if he didn't understand why she acted that way toward him, he couldn't claim to be much better, the only real difference being his show of admiration couldn't be so direct. Yet another reason why he was so dead set on his path.

"I _can't get mad at her for trying and she just wants to help me with my issues. I can't pretend like I don't have problems, but a problem that makes everyone's life better can't really be called a problem, can it?_ "

He wasn't so lost in his thoughts as to miss fate's answer to his musings. Just as he was a mere three pace from the door, A junior, and unsubtly clad, member of Los Muertos was making his approach. He was not much older than Brian, appearing only a few months into his sixteenth year, and was a clear half foot taller than him, something the courier was used to by now being five-two at fifteen. The gangster wore an outfit typical of his creed, loose-fitting pants and a cheap jacket of dark colors with garish accents of purple to show his allegiance. His face was roughly chiseled, well on the better side of average, with no scars worth speaking of. As he walked, he did not even attempt to hide his fixed, determined gaze, unlike the courier who was already planning his attack as he made sure to keep his bike between the two of them.

The rest of the crowd had all but dissipated by the time they had come within speaking distance of each other.

"What's in the box?", the gangster questioned as if it were a threat.

At this distance, Brian could better sum up his soon to be opponent. He was well built for his age, as was Brian, but the true threat of his skill was not something that was easily detected. Brian assumed there was a knife hidden somewhere on his person, as was the custom of every street gang he had encountered in his life, and kept his right hand open and by the pocket of his hoodie. He had left most of his many packs and bags in the basement of Panadería Las Nieblas, but he never separated himself from his wrench while at work.

What evaded him at the moment was the reason for this encounter. Revenge for Inigo and his cohorts seemed too obvious and from what Alejandra had told him of Los Muertos, they weren't the types to think of their comrades as such. Petty theft was another possibility, but even the simplest of criminal had the foresight to attack their target in seclusion. This was another hunt for status like Raf and Marco had tried at two days ago. Whoever this fresh gangster was, he was out for the glory Brian's hide would bring.

"Don't know, and don't know why you need to.", Brian finally said once he had learned all he felt he needed to.

He knew what he was inviting and the hell he would catch if Alejandra found out, but he found that difficult to focus on.

" _He's going to attack no matter what, I might as well take control now._ ", the would-be hero told himself, but even he realized the siren call of the fight was the only voice he could hear now. The steady increase in his heartbeat, the tensing of his muscle purging the stillness in his bones, and the first slow drips of adrenaline like honey in his bloodstream cleansed him of any sort of care for Alejandra's opinions.

"I don't need too, but I'll be taking it anyway.", replied the young gangster as he took a single step forward.

"That so?", said the young self-appointed hero as he took the parcel from the only remaining pack on his bike.

If this was a struggle for reputation, Brian would need to prove how far he was above all comers and he had a plan to do exactly that here. Placing the package on the ground behind him, he made the challenge proper as he slid one hand on the frame of the bicycle.

"You'd better come for it then."

The gangster took another three steps forward as he reached into his jacket.

"You're right, I'd b-"

The final step had been exactly what Brian had been waiting for, it had brought his opponent to the exact range he needed. Hand to hand was too much of a risk with the high probability of the gangster wielding a knife and throwing his wrench would have been too telegraphed to hit him and held too high a risk of hitting an innocent bystander. That left Brian with an option he had been waiting to try for quite some time, to put his strength training to better use. Twenty pounds was not a convenient weight and the awkward shape it came in made it unruly to use a weapon normally, however for a single, unexpectable strike it was invaluable at Brian's level of heroics. For as soon as the third step had touched the ground, Brian but all of his speed and stamina into a single attack, taking his bicycle by the frame with both hands and making a massive swing that sent the courier's most valuable tool into the gangster's side.

The weight of the blow and the bike that delivered it sent the bewildered gangster to the smooth concrete with the Invincible brand vehicle still atop him. The butterfly knife he had tried to draw slid across the ground, eventually stopped by the glass door of _Gonzalez'_. Both of them were winded by the attack, but Brian had a clear advantage that he was eager to capitalize on. Leaping forward, he threw his entire body weight onto the pinned gangster to claim a quick victory before the fighting had truly begun. That is where Brian made his mistake, in his haste to end this fight in a way that would prevent many others, he failed to realize the tenacity of the foe he faced.

Brian was already in the air when the gangster made his counter-attack, shoving the bike back with an even greater surge of power, colliding it with the would-be hero. The resulting clash was very much against the courier as flesh and bone of his arm met metal and the balance of power shifted in an instant. Brian tumbled away, nearly falling into traffic as he did so while his opponent remained on the ground to gather himself. Nothing was broken in either of them, but the sudden burst of power they both had performed left them in need of a moment's breath.

Brian was the first one back on his feet, but only by a second as the gangster staggered up to match him. Disoriented and in pain, the two watched each other carefully as they regained their bearings. It was then that the would-be hero realized that in the chaos of the last attack, his adjustable wrench had fallen out of his pocket. He wished for nothing more than to find it, but he could not afford to let his guard down for even a second. Instead, his wandering eye found the butterfly knife, with his enemy still staggering back to his feet before it.

" _One more thing Alé's gonna be pissed about, but that's her problem. It's life or death out here._ "

With a blinding burst of speed, he charged, not for his objective, but the obstacle in front of it. Only just fast enough to recover and attempt a counter attack, the gangster swung a right hook for the courier's head with his unbruised arm. Showing a deftness that would be unbelievable to all but those who witnessed the fight, Brian weaved under the blow and threw all of his speed and weight into a punch to his kidney. It took all of the gangster's endurance to stay standing after that blow, but stand he did as Brian continued to run for the knife. Unfolding the blade as swiftly as he able, Brian ignored the pain of the finger he had cut in his reckless haste as the fight continued. However, one detail on the red-stained steel of the blade caught his attention, an engraving on the side that gave his enemy a name.

Wisely, Cesar immediately disengaged upon seeing the blade, but noticing the trickle of crimson traveling down the would-be hero's hand changed that plan. With a satisfied smirk, he took an unusual stance, keeping his left hand open and raised while keeping his right fist clenched by his stomach. It was not a stance Brian had ever seen before and likely not one that was ever taught in any sort of class or even the mean streets of Dorado, and that gave pause to the courier. Most street fighting techniques were loosely based on more professional martial arts, in Brian's experience, this typically meant kickboxing or a variation of kung fu, depending on which gang they were in. This stance, however, had no detectable origin and he had no way of predicting what his next move would be.

Brian was unsure how best to approach from here, taking this stance as soon as he saw him with the knife was too deliberate of a move. Staying unexpectable was Brian's best option against what was likely a defensive art, but he was limited by his morality. Brutal injury was one thing, even crippling a person was not below him if he felt it was necessary, but killing a person was not something he had the heart for. " _I can't go that far, I don't have the right to go that far. Not yet._ " His only viable targets were the arms or legs, but with his opponent's arms at the ready for his attack, he was left with only legs to attack. " _Charge in, weave to get close, stab him in the thigh with his own knife, get this over quick and make him lose on every level._ "

Setting his plan in motion, Brian burst forward once again. This, however, was what Cesar was waiting for as a perfectly aimed roundhouse kick knocked the blade from his hands. The weapon flew and bounced it's way under a car as Brian lost his balance as fell to one knee. He only had time to look up and see the fist coming down on him and the smug grin behind it. It had been some time since Brian had taken a hit this hard and as the knuckle pressed into his eye, he couldn't say he missed the feeling.

On the ground and struggling to ignore the pain on the hit and the phantom pain of the gunshot it had triggered, Brian had less than an instant to find the strength to halt the next attack. A kick soared to his stomach, intent to knock the wind from him and leave him unable to defend from the rest of the coming assault. With speed and strength, even Brian was surprised he still had left within him, he halted the kick with but his left forearm and right hand. In the moment's confusion, he seized the opportunity to make an unsportsmanlike, but decisive lash of his fist for the gangster's crotch. It was then that he realized the purpose of his opponent's unorthodox fighting stance as he gracefully slid his right arm down to block the strike within a mere instant of the muscle's first twitch. However, the laws of kinetics meant he was not fully protected and Cesar was forced to stagger backward in agony as the balance of power shifted once again, making them equal for the first time since the battle began.

Crawling back to his feet as his opponent struggled to stay on his own, they both simply watched each other as they waited for time to give them some respite from their injuries. In Brian's case, one likely caused by his older wound from his last encounter with Los Muertos, his sight lacked the ability to discern color properly. The purple stripe along the gangster jacket had turned blue and the dull green car he was resting on suddenly had been made yellow. Greatly disturbed by this, Brian knew he was in no condition to make the first move and saw no other option than to simply bite the pain beating through his skull and analyze his foe more closely through a bruised eye.

As he had suspected earlier, this was a defensive style, one designed to defend from low blows and to deliver one's own to punish an opponent's mistakes. It was almost a certainty that this art was designed on and for the violent streets and back alleys of Dorado, where honor and sportsmanship were as foreign as Brian was. As the color slowly returned to the courier, he saw that stance being taken once again. Cesar tried to hide the suffering he was in, more likely to be lingering from the kidney blow than his more recent groinal assault, but the subtle pressing of his fist against his side gave him away.

Examining his legs far closer this time, Brian noted how he put his right leg forward in the wide legged style. It was a basic tenant of most martial arts to put one side of your body forward to use for defensive movements. Typically, this meant your non-dominant arm and leg as you were essentially sacrificing your limbs to spare the rest of your body. While his arms told him little, the position of his opponent's legs could only make him assume this meant he was left-handed. This was a revelation the would-be hero was glad to learn, for this meant that he would have an extra advantage in a pure hand to hand fight.

It was then, as his attention was locked on his enemy's legs that he noticed a shimmer of light in the corner of his eye. The wrench that had fallen from his hoodie's pocket had ended up only a pace from where he was standing. The old fear of taking his focus away for the second it would take to grab the weapon remained, but the advantages were obvious and the state the both of them were in made it a more viable option. However, safety wasn't his primary concern, the only reason he had taken the knife before was to end this quickly, leaving Cesar in the shame of a complete loss. As things stood now, they had dragged on too long and too even for the gangster to be the one to lose face now if the courier drew his weapon. This was a battle for the sake of pride and glory and needed to be fought as such. Looking back to see his enemy following his gaze, Brian smiled a pompous smile as he took one step forward, placed one foot atop the wrench, and kicked it back behind him as he took his battle stance. Cesar opponent was shocked, to say the least, but after a moment of consideration, an audible pop as he tilted his head sharply and an amused twitch of the lip, the gangster simply said, "Bring it."

There was still much Brian did not know of how this adversary of his fight, but just by analyzing his stance he had found a possible route to victory. The open left palm held steady under his chin was almost certainly intended to deflect hooks and straight punches aimed for his head as well as allowing for easy eye pokes and throat punches. Cesar's torso and groin were still well defended, likely to be far more so now that Brian had already made an attempt for it. However, the gangster's legs remained undefended and he would find it difficult to maintain his balance if a decisive blow was landed on one of them and Brian and a plethora of ways to do that.

Advancing toward his opponent in short dashes that allowed him to keep his form, Brian searched for an opening while keeping a check on his own defenses. Cesar matched him at every step as they circled each other and he calculated his own, unknowable strategy.

" _He's probably fought guys using some cookie cutter ripoff kickboxing, so he'll know what to watch for with basic stuff._ ", Brian deduced.

The courier made a sudden false lunge to gauge his enemy's reaction, and to his fortune, the gangster flinched and moved to parry, clearly on edge from the would-be hero's previous near victories. Psychologically, Brian had already won and this was the proof, everything that followed was just a formality. His normal smile turned to one of self-satisfaction as he moved closer.

With practiced speed, the would-be hero closed the remaining distance and his left knee jolted forward. However, it did not make contact for as Cesar moved just as swiftly to intercept this attack, the leg stopped mid-flight and returned to the ground just as suddenly as the courier's right leg collided with his enemy's own. Losing balance near instantly as Brian's shin slammed into the side of his knee, the gangster was unprepared for the impossibly fast left jab into his right shoulder. In the shock of the attack, his defenses were cracked and the opportunity was seized as a right hook struck him directly in the stomach. And how the adrenaline sang through it all.

Obeying its rhythm, Brian pressed the attack as the gangster fell back, struggling to recover the wind knocked out of him. A straight punch launched for directly for the criminal's nose, only for it to be deflected with a push of the courier's forearm and countered with a stomach blow of his own. Taking a sharp breath while the would-be hero lost his own, Cesar pinned him in place with a stomp of his toes and grabbed the left side of his face. Raising a thumb, the thug made ready to rob him of his undamaged eye, keeping his grip tight to cut off his escape. Escape, however, was the last thing of Brian's mind.

Craning his neck against the gangster's considerable strength, he shot forth with a headbutt, the wet snap of cartilage ringing loud in his ears. Brian didn't even feel the blood splatter on his cheek as the honey of victory beat through his veins and he grabbed the arm of the now toppling Cesar. Believing the third time to be the charm, he knocked the wind from his gut once again followed by an immediate follow-up uppercut to the throat and as the last of the criminal's body control left him, a final, devastating right hook rammed directly into his eye sent him crashing against the pavement. Lying still on the ground with only the faintest signs of breath to say he was not a corpse, the gangster had failed in his hunt for glory in the space of a minute.

The serene rush slowly faded from Brian as he caught his own breath, steadily replaced by the great pain it had taken his mind away from. Agony needled its way through his skull, pulsing through his bloodshot eye and into the bullet's mark. Every movement of his left arm stung as he held it to his head in a vain attempt at halting any pain. He took each gasp of air reluctantly, as the force of the punch that had expelled it from him yet remained. This was the closest he had come to a true and fair loss in some time, he could barely hold on to consciousness despite how hard he fought to present himself otherwise. His focus no longer dead set, he finally realized the small crowd their fight had drawn and saw it as all the more reason to move on. Glory and recognition for his heroics was one thing, but the way the crowd gawked at him was another.

" _I ain't a damn show._ "

Finding the order for Mrs. Gonzalez surprisingly still where he had left it, he was relieved to know the only force that had moved against it was a gust of air as it rested fully intact on its side. Limping over to his reason for coming, he rolled his right sleeve up to cover the still bleeding cut on his pinky and gritted his teeth through the pain of bending down to retrieve it and did much of the same as he tried to correct his posture. Looking back to the still body of Cesar as he faced the door of the hair stylists shop, he muttered "Eye for an eye", through strained lungs. Nearly tripping as he dragged his foot over the gangster's own, he came to the glass door to see the horrified face of his recipient already waiting behind it and a splatter of red on his face in the reflection.

Wiping his cheek on his already stained sleeve and entering into a deafening silence and prying eyes, Brian simply withdrew his phone and brought up the holo-screen app that his work required, "Need you to sign here."

Awkward and unwanted concern soon followed, "Don't you need to sit down and rest? The police should have some medical supplies for you when they arrive."

With a smugness few found reassuring, he replied, "Rain or shine, Ma'am, I've had worse."

Unconvinced, but unsure how to respond, Mrs. Gonzalez signed the holo-screen and was handed her package not but a half second later.

"Alright then", the courier continued, clearly fighting against his pain to speak as loud as he was, "You have a good one now, ma'am".

"Wait!", the stylist demanded as she reached in her back pocket for her wallet. Before she could even crack the cheap polymer open, Brian raised an open palm in protest.

"It's fine, I don't need it."

"You deserve it after having to deal with all that over a hair dryer."

"Maybe, but I've never needed it before."

The hair stylist had no time to insist further as the courier opened the door and began to leave, only stopping after a sudden realization.

"When the cops come, just tell them it was me again. I'd stay, but I have promises to keep." He closed the door behind him as the shocked beginnings of further objection started and ceased as soon as the glass closed behind him.

Fighting hard against the urge to limp and risk further unease from his onlookers, he walked along the windows of _Gonzalez_ ' storefront to his wrench. Bending down and using every last ounce of his willpower to keep the torture from showing on his face, he pocketed the tool and picked up his bike. Not foolish enough to actually ride the Invincible in this state just for his pride, he made his escape from the scene at a steady pace. This encounter couldn't have come at a worse time for him, as a brief glance at his phone's clock as the package was being signed for had informed him. He had promised to meet with Alejandra after church service had ended and even if he had been given a full day to prepare, he wouldn't have been able to hide what he had been through.

" _Guess I'm gonna get some fire and brimstone after all…_ "


	10. Chapter 10: Beliefs

Chapter 10: Beliefs

* * *

It was a ten past one when he walked through the doors of the bakery with an ice pack held to his right eye. He had planned, and promised, to be back at noon sharp, but erring on the side of caution prevented him for doing. In his state, stopping at a corner store for two hundred pesos worth of cubed ice, most of which had already melted,was more important than being punctual. He was greeted by the twin stares of his benefactors: one of shock from Alejandra and one of abject disappointment from her mother. There were no doubt many obvious and uncomfortable question headed his way, but all he could find in his mental search for an opening statement was a weak, "Hey."

Without hesitation, Alejandra rushed over to him with very vocal concern.

"Oh my g-what happened!?"

"Got jumped,"the courier replied matter-of-factly. "Don't worry, I won."

A brief twinge of something that wasn't quite confusion flickered on Alejandra's face,

"Are you sure you're okay? Is anything broken?"

"It's fine, it's only pain."

Her demeanor wasn't quite as passive after hearing that.

"No it isn't, I can see the black eye through the bag."

"...Okay, yeah, it hurts pretty bad," He conceded. "And it's been giving me a headache, but It's fine, I don't need help, just time."

"Yes, you do. Don't try to act tough," she insisted with an anger backed by worry.

"Mom, do w-", she started to say as she turned to see her mother returning from the back room with an armful of jars and bottles.

"Aspirin, muscle pain relievers, some cream to make the bruising go down, and eye drops for the bloodshot," she explained clinically as she punctuated each item with a soft thump of plastic on wood.

Even Alejandra was surprised at how well she had been read, but swiftly moved past it with an awkward,

"Right, thanks!" and hurried over to collect them. Brian was thoroughly confused by both of them, Meche for her efforts despite her clear dissatisfaction for what he had done and Alejandra for her insistence despite her own distaste for being coddled.

"I'm fine," He angrily insisted as Alejandra struggled to undo the security cap of the aspirin bottle, "I'd rather just suffer through it."

Alejandra made a quizzical look at that and chose each of her next words carefully once she believed she understood the meaning behind his anger.

"You're not weak just because you got hit a few times and there's nothing wrong with admitting it hurts.", she said seeing the wounds in his pride and understanding that as towering as it was, it was load bearing. She believed him in his claims of the attack as the reality of Dorado was well known to her and she understood Brian well enough to catch his simpler lies. Vainglory and bloodlust no doubt hung on his shoulder in this fight, but she had little chance at knocking them from their perch, especially now. It would be a slow path, but if Brian was willing to ride two thousand miles in the pursuit of his madness, Alejandra was willing to walk a more abstract one to save him.

" _Yeah, there is._ " Brian nearly said, only just stopping himself from doing so.

Again he found himself unable to deny the truth of her words, despite what the thunderous voice of pride told him.

"Gotta fall before you can rise, right?", he chose to say instead as his mood sweetened, taking to her meaning.

Failure is a necessary step on the road to success, something he realized he should have learned when a bullet struck his temple.

Taking the aspirin bottle from her, still somewhat reluctantly, he cracked the seal with not much more ease and poured a number of pills into his hand. Turning the bottle around to search through the fine print, the information came from a swifter source not a moment later,

"Two pills now, then one more in four hours" Meche interjected as Brian turned to see her offering a glass of tap water. Nodding in thanks, he placed two pills on his tongue, returned the remainder to the bottle, then took the glass and a quick swig to send them down. Near instantly he felt relief from the sharper stings of pain, something he would be unable to thank the placebo effect for.

As Alejandra reached for the next bottle, she was met with more measured protest.

"I'm fine for now, it was just the eye punch that was bothering me, everything else isn't so bad.", he said, only mostly telling the truth.

"There's no point in leaving a job half done.", Alejandra retorted, still putting thought into each word.

"At least let me walk part of it off.", he replied, doing his best to inject some humor into his tone.

"Well, rub some of the cream on the bruise on at least so we won't get any wrong looks. We are still going out at two, right?"

"Don't...Don't phrase it like that. We're just gonna be looking around the market together because you wander and I have bad taste."

Unscrewing the cap of the cream of a brand so pretentious Brian could not even read their name off the jar due to the over-stylized writing, the conversation continued.

"I still don't know why you're so sensitive about that. It's not like it would be weird.", Alejandra insisted, more innocent in intent than she sounded to him, once her mother left earshot.

Her reason for doing so eluded her, but she hadn't the time to put any serious thought into it. Perhaps this was her way of testing her daughter after the latter's constant insistence to be treated like an adult, but with Brian in the state he was in, Alejandra had no time to dwell on it.

"Half my age plus seven is fourteen and a half, you're a year and a half off. It's weird", Brain said bluntly as he began to apply the cream, using pain as a map rather than a mirror.

"A year off." She corrected somewhat incorrectly, as she was born in June. "And is that the law up north?"

"It is to me." He said, hard-nosed. "Do we have to talk about this now?"

"We could talk about how you got that shiner."

"Not much to tell," Brian said with a shrug. "I got jumped, just like I did two days ago. Only difference being this guy knew how to fight."

"But not better than you.", Alejandra appealed as a way to gain a foothold in the conversation.

"You know it.", he played along.

She didn't quite laugh at that half-genuine boast, but the bemused puff of air and a sarcastic shake of Alejandra's head gave him some ease. He knew this was at least partially an act, either to soothe his pride or guilt him into an apology for something that was not his fault. Experience with the baker's daughter told him it was likely a mix of both, but he could not bring himself to hold it against her. " _She's only trying to help, and it's not like she's all that wrong_."

"It was a Los Muertos this time," Brian told her for the sake of honesty and advice, "Looked fresh, had a butterfly knife, think his name was Cesar, had this weird fighting stance; any of that sound familiar?"

"No, he doesn't. If he was new, you shouldn't need to worry too much about someone coming after you. They don't care too much about anyone who hasn't earned their first tattoo and even then, it rare for them to care about anyone who not useful to them at that particular moment."

"Yeah, I remember you telling me something about that."

"So why did you ask then?"

"I just wanted to know if anyone else on the streets knew how to fight like that. Kinda look like this." He said as he roughly imitated the odd stance.

."No, never seen anything like that before."

"Exactly", he responded in a sly tone as he raised the eyedropper high and held its target open and unobstructed. Still, he was hesitant to apply the minute pressure to actually use the medical device, much to Alejandra's confusion and eventual ire as she wished to get to the root of his point. Slowly reaching over to the rubber cap, she placed her thumb and index finger and, with a brief exchange of a raised eyebrow from her and a resigned curl of his lip and a quick nod, she squeezed to release the stinging medicine.

"It's not like anyone willing to teach it to a gangster would be willing to teach it to you, since...well, you know how they are by now.", she continued to press as grimaced and blinked rapidly.

"I was talking more about if anyone else knew how to fight like that so I could work it out myself, one way or the other."

Seeing clearly for the first time in an hour and a half, he was greeted by an expression that somehow conveyed absolute frustration, utter concern, and violent disappointment all in equal spades.

"I meant if I had to fight against anyone like that again," Brian countered, realizing his accidental implication "I don't go looking for trouble...anymore."

With a heavy sigh that told him just how unconvinced she was, Alejandra replied, "If you say so. I'm going to get ready, we'll leave at one-thirty."

"Right…" said Brian, as he lifted himself up through the remaining majority of the pain and made his retreat to the basement to cleanse the blood from his good luck charm.

"Come on, you can barely tell! I may have done it fast, but I did it mostly right."

"It's still damp and it's still dirty from everything else, it makes you look like some kind of street beggar!" she said, making sure to hide the more genuine part of her frustration behind a comedic tone.

They entered the outdoor mall at one-thirty-five and they had been arguing about his choice to not change out of his blue hoodie since they had left. The shape of the crowds had changed entirely since Brian had first left to start work. This could not be called unsurprising given that this was a Sunday and one only less than two weeks from The Day of the Dead at that.

"We've been over this, it's a good luck charm. The whole museum thing was like the second time I ever wore it and everything since then's been going my way. Like that bullet just missing everything it needed to hit, you can't call that a coincidence."

"Lucky would be if it didn't hit you" She responded with a hefty amount of snide "And how do you know it's that big blue bootleg that's been stacking the deck for you?"

"Oh, I've tested it, even with other Raider hoodies, but unless it's this specific one, my luck gets as bad as it normally is. And how did you know it was a knock off anyway?"

"If you're willing to lug around that brick you call a phone, you're willing to buy clothes made behind the Panda Express."

"Hey, come on now, I'm not that cheap. I get my stuff from behind the P. 's like a normal person," he said, over exaggerating the jest in his voice. "Anyways, isn't that why we're here, to help me find non-hobo tier stuff?"

"You don't need me for that, just go into any store and just pick anything that's not on a mannequin or in the bargain bin. It's not like you dress all that bad, you just need clothes that aren't covered in dirt and knife holes."

"You had me until 'not the bargain bin'" he said only half-sarcastically.

Alejandra shook her head and tried to hide the smile he had given her as she gave him a shove in much more legitimate humor toward the nearest storefront, one by the name of Delgado's. They didn't spend long, as Brian followed her well-intentioned nagging with diligence once she was able to coax him past the six-hundred peso price tag. However, despite her best efforts to persuade him otherwise, they had only walked away with a single extra change of garb.

"Hey, I live on the road. I can't spend all that much on anything that ain't food and shelter." He had said to her.

"Well, you don't have to live like that," Alejandra offered "There are plenty of heroics to be done here, you said it yourself."

"...Half plus seven.", he said, assuming too much from her statement and moving even more steps ahead of it.

"You sure assume I'm talking about... _that_ a lot."

"Well...I mean...I remember how I was when puberty stuck. Its dirty street needle in my backside, so I just want to lay the ground rules now," he said, only partially in jest.

"...Now I regret not fighting you harder about coming to church," she replied, joking even less.

Brian was silent for a time after that quip as they made their way to a food stop of Alejandra's prior choosing, an authentic Mexican faux Italian-American style Cafe by the name of Bertorelli's Caffè. It was a recent addition to Dorado, arriving only four months before Brian had, and the franchise itself only arriving after the borders of all states were made as open California had been since the Armstrong Act had let them some forty years ago. There was a decent number of customers, just enough to make their wait seem tedious, though the overwhelming majority of them opted to stay inside due to the relative cold of October. The weather had left an abundance of seats outside and given what they were about to discuss, the dubious privacy of a patio table would have been their choice anyway. Had Alejandra not known any better, she would assume he had left the air after her comment stagnant out of shame or embarrassment, but she was familiar enough with him to know he was just finding the proper words to explain himself. It wasn't until they had already placed their orders and found a seat, that he finally decided on how to make his case.

"I've been to a few churches to spend the night on my way here when the hotels were too rich or too sleazy. They were all decent enough about, I got to stay so long as they got to try their hand at converting me. I swear they all and the same speech about, 'The light shining in darkness', down to the pauses even. I still don't really believe in all that, but at least my folks were wrong about hope and charity just being buzzwords and I'm not gonna pretend like I know everything."

Alejandra put much thought into what Brian had said, just as much as he had before saying it. However, she was hurried on by his the unnatural straightness of his posture and subtle fidgeting of his legs, telling her of his unease and was quick to rectify that.

"I can understand that and I can't act like I know everything either, really no one can." She could see him relax ever so slightly, only to tense up again the moment she continued to speak. "Still, it doesn't hurt to give it some thought, even if you don't take it all that literally."

"I got plenty of those little booklets they hand out," he said dismissively "Haven't found much I haven't heard in different words already."

"Well, if that's what works for you," she replied with some concern in her voice "But, well, this might be a bit of touchy question…"

Brian was apprehensive, there were many things he had left unanswered that aptly fit the description of 'touchy'. The transition to this upcoming question for the topic of religion did not give him many clues, given the sheer number of life's aspects that Catholicism had its own guidelines for. Not confident in his ability to accurately guess what Alejandra was referring to, he ushered her on with a simple, "What is it?"

"Well, I mean…" she started nervously, "I thought you would be more interested in the other side since you've been there."

Contrary to Alejandra's expectations of another rise in his emotional defenses, Brian relaxed, relieved this was not another question about his upbringing.

"I try not to focus on the end, it distracts from the here and now. Besides, I don't remember anything between the bullet and waking up, so I'm still not convinced there even is anything there. I try to keep an open mind and all, but I kinda just-"

"Don't care.", Alejandra finished for him. She did so without even a hint of venom in her voice, simply stating it as a fact. "It's fine, I keep an open mind too."

Brian didn't have time to smile as the call for their orders came.

"Caffe Americano with a bagel and a Cappuccino with biscotti!"

Alejandra's pleasant demeanor suddenly soured, as her order was for a Marocchino.

"This is going to take a while, don't get into another fight while I'm gone.", she said as she rose up.

"Is it really that big of a deal? They're basically the same thing."

"They're not the same thing!", she asserted "And come on, you should know how annoying something like this is. You need to make a stand sometimes, you know that better than I do."

For a half-second, Brian was concerned, thinking back to the many times he had seen under qualified Californian mothers start a tirade over the smallest of mistakes, particularly the unfortunate number of times he was on the receiving end of one for errors that were not his. Alejandra, however, was the furthest thing from one of those petulant woman-children, so he brushed off the suspicion and let her go with a piece of advice, just to be certain.

"Just don't be too hard on them.", he said with a smile.

"I'm not a Tijuanan housewife. I just want what I ordered," she read behind his comment with her own smile.

She was only a few paces away by the time Brian heard the faint chuckling behind him and the jeer that brought it to his attention.

"Hell of a catch, Dailor!" The voice was singsong and in good humor, but with a distinct sliminess that fit the face, Brian quickly turned to witness. He had the look of a young, but pale Hispanic man in his early twenties with the grace of a man of his late-thirties and had the fashion sense of one in his forties, given his choice of a purple suit and yellow undershirt that somehow looked simultaneously cheap and expensive.

"Or maybe she's the one who made the good catch, Fist Boy!", he said, flashing an unnaturally white, priggish smile.

Two men, most certainly underlings of his judging by the hints of purple on their attire, sat at each side of him at the table. The both of them looked to be in their thirties and the distinctive grit each of them carried said they had been in the business of crime for at least half of their lives. They were dressed far more utilitarian given their role as simple soldiers for the only gang that earned the right to wear such a garish color and have it seen with fear and respect. They were not visibly armed, which of course meant that they were armed for a bear. Even in the off-chance that they were not, they were all larger and almost certainly more experienced than the courier in the art of fighting. Brian did not move from his table while he sized up the trio in the momentary silence, barely moving an inch of himself other than to take in breath, refusing to show even the slightest sign of weakness.

Irritated by the continued silence, the sharp-dressed gangster laid his thinly veiled threats on thick.

"I'm not mistaken now, am I? You are Brian Caleb Dailor, son of Aaron Dailor and Michelle Klein who live on 3436 Hannah St in Clawson Oakland with their other, less suicidal son, Timothy?" Of all the smug dominating he did with his knowledge, hearing his middle name for the first time in over seven years was the most aggravating slight to Brian, still reeling from the ignored intolerance he had faced for his heritage.

"And you're Santana.", the would-be hero with hefty snide. Most of his knowledge of Los Muertos had come from Alejandra given her obvious experience living in a city infested by them, but she had often been very evasive about the subject most times it had been brought up. In the short list of the more important information was the name of the Captain in command of Los Muertos operations in Dorado. Anselmo Santana was, from what he understood, one of the men most responsible for the gang's rapid conquest of the city during his stint as a lieutenant with a relative lack of violence compared to most other assorted townships that have come under their heel. While the exact details were either beyond her knowledge or too painful for Alejandra to speak of, Brian surmised that he did so through a massive campaign of blackmail and extortion powered by the legions of hackers and other information thieves, not too dissimilar to how the Wah Ching Triad assumed control of the majority of West Oakland after the mass exodus of the blighted Chinese mainland after the inhuman virus bombings of the omnic crisis.

From there, the Los Muertos was free to roam the city unopposed as they owned nearly every piece of property directly or indirectly and could easily bribe, intimidate, or outright murder anyone who spoke up about it. "It was like the twenties all over again", was her way of phrasing it. That, however, was before Los Muertos was deemed worthy of Overwatch's attention once the presence of Talon was found in the city. Despite being spread as thin as they were in the years leading up to their collapse, the terrorists were routed and much of Los Muertos' operations were pulled out by the roots on the vague suspicion of collaboration with Talon. While this ended in the death of the Gang Captain in command of the city, Santana himself was able to escape the watchful eye of the world police and claim the vacant seat of power in the years following Overwatch's collapse. While the gang may not have regained all the power they once had and their attempts at reclaiming it near irreversibly hobbled by the actions of Soldier 76 and Sombra abandonment of them, the streets of Dorado and many cities across Mexico were well under their control.

"Ah, so you've heard of me?" Santana said as his smile became genuine, albeit self-satisfied. "I take it that's her work, then? Well, it doesn't matter, as long as it saves us time. Come sit with us, we have business to discuss."

Brian let out a brief, silent laugh of disbelief as one of the skull-clad bodyguards pulled out the remaining empty seat and turned it toward the courier. For a man who knew every recorded detail of the young man's life, Santana had an astronomically incorrect judgment of him to think he would even consider listening to anything the gangster could offer or be swayed by anything he could threaten.

"I preferred hard road and homeless shelters to living with them, what makes you think that intimidates me?" Brian said, telling two-thirds of the truth. "Besides, the Triad's don't tolerate any crime on their turf that ain't theirs and what's left of the Old Tijuana Cartels stateside don't deal with anyone further south than the Baja and you burned out all your goodwill after what you pulled in San Diego. You got nothing on me."

Santana raised an eyebrow and gave an impressed grin. "Guess I was wrong, she's definitely the one who got the better deal."

The lieutenant took one last sip of his espresso and slowly rose from his seat, quickly halting his compatriots from doing the same with a mere gesture. Taking the chair offered to Brian, he pulled it ever so closer to the would-be hero and took a reversed seat. From this new distance and enhanced lighting, Brian finally understood the strange disconnect between his apparent youth and his fashion sense. The use of Cosmetic Biotics to reduce the effects of age may have been an unspoken law amongst any woman on the latter end of their twenties, but it was generally considered poor form in most parts of the world for a man to do the same thing, due in no small part to the fact most were designed solely to interact with female hormones. Yet Santana did, as the mismatch in skin texture between his face and the rest of him told Brian. The courier had little understanding of why he would do so, given that age was a thing to be respected in most crime organizations given how violent they tend to be, but it would hardly be the first time a mid-life crisis led a man to something beyond logic.

"Let me cut to the chase for you," The vain lieutenant continued "You remember that boy that gave you that black eye about an hour or so ago?"

"Cesar," Brian said with a sneer of wounded pride.

"Yes." Santana grinned, catching onto that particular crack in his armor. "You won't have to worry about him coming back for you, I got the boy on a leash, scouted him myself. Hell, I was the one that sent him after you."

The courier said nothing at that, merely adding to another few centimeters to his scowl.

Santana added entire inches to his smile as he came to his point. "You might have noticed that he was one hell of a fighter, not quite to the level of my friends back there, but the kid's chock full of potential. Kind of like you in a way, though I imagine you'll be applying it in different ways by the end. Would you like to know where he learned to fight?"

Thinking several steps ahead in the conversation, Brian calmly and clinically answered the question he sensed was upcoming after several moments of pondering.

"I'm not joining your gang, you insecure manwhore."

Up close, Santana's smile was a thing of true horror, unnatural youth on the edge of splitting apart under the strain of the gangster's show of bleached enamel. His laugh was low and quiet and the disturbing dance of his vocal cords drew Brian's attention to the poor attempts to mask the shallowness of his throat that came with age. There was a slight hoarseness to the chuckle that further revealed what vanity had tried to hide as he continued on.

"Oh, you're getting way ahead of yourself, boy. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. Hell, the boss thought I might have been a bit too white when they brought me in, so what chance do you have? Anyways, that wasn't why I've been keeping an eye on you since you did e the favor of getting Inigo back in prison so one of my boys that's worth an eighth of a white dog turd could kill him for me."

Brian flinched at the thought of that, even if the thug did hurt Alejandra like he did and almost kill him, he couldn't enjoy the idea of sending to his indirect demise.

"Hmph, If that's how you feel hearing that shitheel got what he had coming to him..." The gangster said, reading the twinge. "Maybe you aren't cut out for _Vemana_."

Once again, Brian gave an involuntary sign that showed his interest that would be invisible to anyone but one as devious as a Los Muertos lieutenant.

"Just a little side-project I've been working on for the last few years, a way to put our new recruits through the wringer and keep the old guard sharp while we make some money on the side."

"A fight pit." The would-be hero said deridingly, though not without some legitimate intrigue hidden behind it.

"The one that Cesar learned how to fight in. The one that's open from 10 pm to 4 am at 2281 Porraz Avenue and has no entry fee. The one that's always looking for some fresh meat, and whose veterans are starting to get a bit too soft, I'd say you're just the kind of wake-up call they needed. Nothing lethal, of course, not unless you both want it to go that way and we have some of the best med-school dropouts money can buy even if you do lose at some point. What do you have to lose?"

With the purpose of this meeting finally revealed, Brian's plan on how to respond to any offers had yet to be unchanged. "And you think I'm dumb enough to take you up on that?"

"Yes, I do."

The courier turned away, allowing the immense risk it brought him for the sake of the insult.

"You wouldn't be smiling the whole time when fighting Cesar if you didn't enjoy it." Santana proclaimed, his tone growing dark for the first time. "If you're worried about your 'heroism' being wounded, you'll be beating up aspiring criminals, maybe you can even beat them hard enough to figure it's not worth it. And, hell, maybe you'll figure out some new ways of doing it, just like Cesar did. I only bothered trying to threaten you as a formality, I'm not making a deal with you, I'm doing you a favor."

Brian kept silent, considering the offer despite himself. He had to admit to that it was quite tempting, everything he could have wanted was on a platter and all he had to sacrifice was some pride and make a few changes to his sleep schedule. It was a touch of the former and a hefty sum of Alejandra belief in him that kept the courier from accepting and a slight confusion that made him ask a question.

"You seem happy enough to shove your mouth-breathers at me now without anyone doing much about it, why bother with a fight pit?"

"I like to keep the streets peaceful, it keeps people like you from cropping up and the less of you, the less hits I have to order. Just in case you need another threat and another offer of the table."

There was little a threat to his own safety could do to move Brian and he suspected that Santana knew that. More perplexing to him, however, was the fact that he had yet to offer any promise of violence toward Alejandra. He had figured that Meche had to be paying protection fees through grinding teeth, but whatever meager sum they could claim through that was hardly enough to keep them off of the list of intimidations

. " _Are they off limits to them? She hasn't been keeping anything from me, has she? She did say that Russian wanted to get information about the gang, she never said what though. Maybe that's why she never talks about her dad_..." With that in his mind, an extra ounce of conviction was added to his next refusal.

"Don't know how much it takes to bribe a cop these days, but I imagine that rates are high when it comes to murder, I'm gonna guess about 100,000 pesos a body. Add an extra 50k since still technically a kid, another 50k for me being American and how bad it would look to tourists not to mention what the government would want to know given how much Texans love to prod yours about that, and given that whole 'fisting' as you put it and it being against Talon no less, I'd say that's worth about a whole mil. And since you're at the point where you have to deal with a pisskid like me in person, I doubt you can take that hit standing up."

Santana scowled, revealing new and unthinkable ways for his malformed features to contort that would have been sure to spawn nightmares in a young child.

"Listen here, boy, y-"

"I'm not your boy, and I don't need your favors. You should move to Hollywood if you're into giving kid's 'favors'", the would-be hero sneered with finality and without a hint of fear leaking through his facade.

Santana should have been furious, he wanted to be furious, but the sheer audacity of the upstart American forced him to laugh. There was no reason for him to lose his composure, the courier may have been obtuse and stubborn in his beliefs, but there were ways of forcing his hand to drive him into Santana's palm. As things stood, his pride would need far more damage done before he could be forced into anything.

"You know what kid, I can respect that level of ballsiness, so I'll let you off for at least a day. I urge you to reconsider your position though, everyone thinks they're the hottest shit on the sidewalk until they get stepped on. Talk to you later." He gave another gesture to his cronies and the group was on their way. As they exited the hearing range of the would-be hero, the older of the two guards demanded an answer to his perplexity.

"We really letting that shitlord whitey off the hook after all that?"

"I'm deeply offended by the fact that you even assumed that." His superior snapped back. "Call up Tepoztli and tell him to keep an eye on that -what did he call himself?- pisskid and give him the boots when he's in a big enough crowd. I want him alive, but he can break as much as he wants before that, just as long as that chip on his shoulder breaks too."

Brian leaned back in his chair and let out a heavy sigh once the thug trio was out of sight.

" _No way this isn't going to bite me in the ass someday_."

The brunt of his fears and anxiety may have left him at the moment, but the anticipation of the danger that was sure to come already began gnawing at him. " _God, I'm a dumbass, I should have just taken the deal. I'd be screwed either way, at least his way I wouldn't need to worry about a knife in the ribs as much as normal. It's not like I can just show up anyway, what would that say about me? And what about Alé? Do I even tell her about this? I don't even know what her deal with them is or if their even is one_."

When she finally returned, Alejandra carried a tray of their and a satisfied look back to the table. As she approached, Brian made a mental note to accompany her inside the next time they went anywhere, not trusting the magic number to be on his side the next time.

"There we are, took a few minutes, but you need to make a statement sometimes."

Reaching for his cup, the luke-warmth he felt made him doubt the value of her stand, hypocritical as even he realized that was. "Yeah, guess you do."

Reading the deeper contemplation hidden behind his clearer disappointment, she voiced her worries. "Did...Did something happen again?"

"No, nothing…" He lied "I was just thinking about what we should do next." That, at least, was the truth. The opening comments from Santana, debating which of the two was the others catch, had stuck with him far more than the gangster had likely anticipated. Even if he didn't consider them to truly be each other's anything, the idea of one of them being superior to the other in that context did not set right with him. Considering what he valued in himself, a way to thin the perceived gap between them was clear to him. "Remember when I was talking about showing you how to fight?"

"Yeah, but that's not really my idea of how to spend a Sunday. And are you sure you're up to it? It's only been about two hours…"

"It'll be fine, you'll be doing most of the work anyway. I'm not planning on anything major, just a few basics, just in case someone comes for you to get to me or anything like that. It shouldn't take too long, an hour at the most."

"I don't think my mom would want us to do that kind of thing around the house, though…" She said with false disappointment.

"Then we can do it in the park, plenty of space there."

"Yeah, but aren't you supposed to have special equipment for that? I don't want either of us to get hurt."

"It'll be fine, only the trainer's supposed to wear padding and I'll be fine without it."

"I don't know, I don't have any real sportswear. I mig-"

"Alé, just humor me, will ya?"

It was a brief crack in his facade, but Alejandra saw a flicker of true concern in his angel eyes. It stood to reason that he would worry for her safety after all he had been through, just today he had been beaten half to death and he had only been in Dorado for just over a week. Amused by the role-reversal, she decided to push aside her own want for a lazy afternoon and share in Brian's interests to ease his worries and gain more insight into how he thinks and feels during his bouts. Besides, he wasn't the only one with heroic aspirations, this would be a great opportunity to prepare for her future.

"Alright, alright." She smiled " If you're really that worried for me, I'll give it a shot."

"I'm a lot more than just worried for you." He said, trying to make it sound like a joke.

* * *

Sneak Peek at Chapter 11: /watch?v=ut9kyP1Bsx4

Sorry this took so long, between the polar vortex and many rewrites based on feedback from my proofreader, I've had problems finding enough time to spend hammering things out. I'd say the next chapter should be out faster, but that'll just jinx it.


	11. Chapter 11: Axeman

Chapter 11: Axeman

* * *

The fist flew toward Brian, aimed for just over his shoulder. Batting it away with measured force, he restated his instruction with added discontent.

"No, like you're trying to _hit_ me, not almost hit me."

"I just want to be sure you don't get hurt even more," Alejandra said through audible breaths brought about by the earlier half-hour of striking at the air with the most basic of the would-be hero's techniques. 'Checking your form' he called it, hastily rephrasing that statement after realizing what that had sounded like. Alejandra knew he had meant it literally, but that had not stopped her from making a few jabs with her words. A glancing blow to his ego was one thing, but she had no desire to risk adding to the physical blows he had already suffered today.

"I said not to worry about it," Brian replied with some frustration. "It's practice for me too and it'll help us both if you're hitting for a KO."

Alejandra nodded and reentered the basic stance Brian had been taught at Kabazinski's Kickboxing Dojo nearly eight years ago and reiterated to her mere minutes ago. She was a quick learner despite Brian's dubious skills as a teacher, but as he had told her the purpose of the training was not gain knowledge of what to do, rather it was to make it second nature through the simple act of repetition. Intentionally missing during the exercise rendered it pointless, but even if there was a one percent chance that she would injure him, she did not want to take it.

" _He's been hit enough today, but I'd probably hurt him more if I didn't try to_."

As she reluctantly entered the stance, Brian adopted the form of the foe he had faced only hours before. She considered asking why this first time he had done so, but she sussed out the answer half a second later.

" _He must think he needs to learn how to fight like that since he almost lost to it. Kind of egotistical, but not really a bad idea. Just as long as he doesn't go and look for a fight with that guy again once he figures it out. I still need a way to get that chip off his shoulder though, so I'll have to keep digging once this is over._ "

"Ready?", Brian questioned.

"Ready.", she confirmed.

"Alright, right jab.", he instructed and she swiftly obeyed, aiming for his nose with restrained force.

He deflected the false attack away with his forearm and broke stance. He said nothing this time, using an exaggerated gesture of disappointed to get his message across. Reassuming the form, he sternly repeated himself.

"Right jab." This time, she obeyed the spirit of that command. Brian blocked the attack far later than he was willing to admit.

" _She learns quick. Stronger than she looks too...Makes that year and a half feel even worse._ "

Not letting his less than pure pondering on how that strength would develop give him pause, he continued his instruction.

Right jab after left jab after right jab with the occasional sidekick to break the monotony, the training quickly became tedious and exhausting to Alejandra. It was a good ten minutes later, though it felt like thirty to her, that there was any true break in the supposed action. As they had chosen a public park on a Sunday afternoon, they had been the subject to many a quizzical look from the many passersby. Most thought nothing of it and those that did had not spoken up about it, however, a sudden outburst against it broke the concentration of the pair of would-be heroes.

The dog was a pit bull, with the distinctly elongated snout of their cousin breed of Bull Terrier, and it was charging at them with all hell's fury after it announced its presence. She was named Dominio, as the booming orders coming from her owner had told all those nearby, named for the odd patches of black fur that dotted her primary coat of white. As one would expect from a dog, Domino was closing the considerable five-yard distance with infinite haste from the moment the duo entered eyesight. No one but Brian could determine why in the seconds it took for Domino to reach them.

Alejandra was unable to process what was happening at first, as the sight of a dog running was not something that would immediately trigger fight or flight instincts. Once she had realized the weight of the situation less than a second later, her first natural reaction was to run for cover. She was barely a twitch into her escape before Brian gave her a new set of instructions.

"Fall down and pretend you're hurt!"

She thought to question him as to why, but the moment's hesitation forced him to repeat himself.

"Just do it! Trust me on this!", he pleaded, making his worry no secret.

The inflection of his voice and the lack of motion he displayed were her assurance that this was no grasp at straws, but words spoken from experience. Feeling that was enough to go in the brief moments of immediate danger, she agreed and collapsed to the ground in false pain. Brian followed her to the ground in a more dignified way, taking a knee and angling his side toward the charging canine.

Domino screeched to a halt upon reaching her targets, nearly colliding with them as her rending claws dug into the ground to brake, showering the duo in dirt and grass. She barked, loud, as she began to sniff Alejandra aggressively. Recognizing the meaning behind the slight whine in her voice, Brian quickly charted a plan to calm the beast. Domino was moving erratically, confused and unsure, with her ears folded backward and constantly darted her amber eyes between Alejandra, Brian, and her still enraged owner.

Alejandra's heart was on the verge of bursting from her chest, something she could not be blamed for given how foreign of an experience this had become for her and how little control she had over it. There was anger interlaced with that fear, anger at fate for putting her in this position again and anger at herself for still lacking the strength and skill to defy it. She counted herself lucky to have Brian at her side, but dependable as he was, leaning on him for aid was the opposite of what they both wanted.

"Don't worry and don't move.", Brian said, his own nerves clearly rising. "She thought you were attacking me and didn't know any better."

He slowly offered the dog the back of his closed fist, and in a quick side glance, she gave it quick smell and a lick before continuing her anxious vigil. Her right front paw was raised and lazily hanging in the breeze to show how unsure Dominio was with a situation her canine mind wasn't fully capable of understanding. Panicked as she was, but having no aggression toward Brian, she allowed him to pet her side. With this dubious trust, the courier seized the opportunity to slip a thumb under her collar and kept a firm grip.

The owner, a portly man on the bad side of his thirties, finally caught up with them and Domino's concentration was broken for a brief moment as he heaved in exhaustion. In this break, Alejandra dared to make the slightest movement for her own comfort while the dogs head was turned. Domino lunged the exact second she moved and might have sunk her teeth into the baker's daughter were it not for Brian's hold on the beast. Not even pausing to feel the pain the pull of the collar inflicted on her throat, Domino let out a commanding bark only to cough immediately afterward.

For her aggression, Brian pushed his thumb down on the back of her neck to remind her of her place. It is a common show of dominance among canines for the alpha of a pack to nip the necks of those below them to assert their authority. Dominio yelped at that as if she were in pain, but Brian knew his strength and the behavior of dogs well enough to recognize the falseness in the animal's protest.

" _She must not be used to getting shown who's boss...Guess that's even more reason to do it_ _now_." Gathering up the trailing leash, Brian tossed it to her owner.

"Here." He said through gritted teeth, "Almost broke my thumb off with that one."

The portly gentleman quickly honored the requested and wrapped the length of the lead around the considerable girth of his arm as he kept his grip steady.

"I'm really sorry about this." The owner managed to apologize through his wheezes.

"Don't be," Brian replied. "She thought I was in danger and tried to help. We could use more like her in the world today."

"Well, there isn't much use for her here!" Alejandra spoke up, clearly miffed by Brian choice in words. "We were just practicing!"

"You can't really blame her for not noticing, you were fierce back there." He remarked, catching his mistake and attempting to cover it.

"Can I get up now?" She said, her tone indicating his failure.

"Let me get you up, she'll understand it better that way."

As the owner struggled to move the densely muscled animal away from the young pair, Brain extended a hand to Alejandra. The moment their hands met, another bark rang out and was answered by a hefty pull of the leash and a nervous whine accompanied every one of their movements as they rose to their feet.

"Let's just head back." Alejandra resigned as she brushed a few loose blades of grass off her pants.

"Hang on a sec, we need to set things straight." Brian implored.

"What?" The portly man and the baker's daughter said in unison.

Well, just look at her," He gestured to the high strung pit bull, "She still thinks there's a problem, even though we've been telling her there isn't. We should clear this up now so it doesn't happen again."

He reached into his left pocket and withdrew a broken half of a dog biscuit. "Does she know 'sit'?"

"Yeah, of course." The owner said, still somewhat confused.

The dog remained in an aggressive stance, ready to pounce at a hair trigger, the repeated attempts to rebuker her actions proving ineffective.

"Domino." He said, revealing the treat in his hand. Breaking her focus for a fraction of a second, he clenches his fist and held it to his chest.

"Do you just carry those around with you all the time?" Alejandra asked.

"Yeah, why?"

The dog whined louder at her question, only to be silenced before she could fully bark.

"Hey!" Brian snapped as he stepped in to cut off her line of sight to Alejandra. After a few moments of anxious whines and a number of subtle movements from the courier, she eventually obeyed the command to sit.

Rewarding her for obeying his orders, Brian held the biscuit out in an open palm. Domino took it, slowly, and held in the corner of her razored maw, chewing in an almost cautious manner. The courier knelt down and took the opportunity to calm the dog with some now earned petting as well as allowing him to physically bar her if the next steps did not go as planned. With the first audible crunch, Brian waved Alejandra over and held out a whole biscuit. She understood his intentions near instantly but held her reservations.

"You sure you know what you're doing?"

"Hey, I didn't grow up in a place called Dogtown for nothing.", he remarked in a sly way.

Alejandra took a step forward and Domino snapped to attention, crumbs spilling from her lips. Brian made sure that the handoff was in plain view of this still befuddled animal.

"Easy," He told the dog calmly before turning to Alejandra "Be assertive, but not aggressive. And don't look her right in the eyes, dogs hate that."

She followed his advice and copied his earlier movements, Domino needing reassurance after each motion.

"You're alright with this, right?" She asked the owner once she realized that he had yet to be asked for his permission in any of this.

"This is the calmest anyone's ever been able to make her when she gets agitated like this. I kind of just want to see where this goes.", he replied.

With that loose endorsement of their actions, she gave the instruction.

"Domino,"

There was a whine.

"Sit."

Domino did not sit and barked at the suggestion that she should.

Brian enforced discipline once again, pressing her neck with his index finger considerably softer than before. She did not voice any protest this time and remained silent, though not without looking back at him with puppy eyes. After several moments of assurance and physically pushing her back end down to make sure she understood, Domino eventually did as she was told.

"She's still pretty upset, so get on her level. Put your side to her when you're doing it too, that should make her chill a little." Brian suggested.

Alejandra followed the advice, having no reason to doubt him given their success so far, and dropped to one knee.

By comparison to her behavior in the previous few minutes, Domino did calm down. As Alejandra extended a closed palm with the edges of the biscuit's bone shape poking through, a few quiet whines came with it. With much egging on from Brian and the basic temptation of the treat, the pit bull leaned in to get her scent on friendlier terms. Remaining completely still and making no eye contact, the baker's daughter opened her hand and held it steady long enough for the strain to set in as Domino constantly looked back and forth and occasionally woofing quietly with her jaws closed. Finally, just before Alejandra's arm snapped at the elbow, the dog slowly reached over and took the biscuit from her hand, retreating at the same snail's pace.

Again, Domino began her arduous process of unsure chewing as she gave Alejandra the side eye. Once her focus had shifted entirely, Brian gave a tilt of the head to push her towards petting the distracted canine. Reaching slowly forward for a simple pat on the head, she was stopped when the animal glared at her with the whites of her eyes. Soggy treat still in her vice jaws, Domino's jowls twitched back to bare her teeth and sound a quiet growl. The baker's daughter reeled her arm back just as slowly as she and Brian gave each other the same tense and awkward face to one another to indicate that they had gone far enough.

"Well, better than nothing.", Brian resigned to Alejandra. She could tell he was disappointed, not in her of course, but in Domino and to an extent, himself.

"It's a start though, right? You're the expert here." She replied, wanting to both distract him from this particular self-criticism, seeing it as unearned and to learn more of this talent with dogs he had not spoken of before.

"Yeah, most pound dogs are like this, can take years to get it out of them if they've been there for too long."

"How'd you know I got her from the pound?", the portly owner said. Brian jumped slightly at that, forgetting he was there.

"Fear-aggressive pit, never seen one that wasn't from the pound. She's about two or three years old, going by her size, so she was probably dumped off when she wasn't a puppy anymore. Probably never had to deal with other dogs before so constant barking for eighteen hours a day would have scared the absolute crap out of her." He reached over to pet Domino's side as he continued, she allowed it. "Sooner or later, instinct takes over and she starts barking back then eventually starts barking at anything that startles her. Guessing she did well with the staff though, probably why she's fine with you and me since they were the only ones not making noises at her. She was probably attacked by another dog at some point too, which is why she jumped at Alé here, she just wanted to keep a human, the only people she actually likes, from being hurt."

Alejandra had no words, stunned by this extensive knowledge he had never shown a hint of possessing before. The still unnamed owner, however, was slightly less impressed.

"Well, you're half right, but that's a real head on your shoulders for figuring that much out."

Brian tried to hide a prideful smirk, succeeding against the one who had caused it, but not Alejandra.

"Well, she seems like a good dog regardless," She said, not truly believing that, "She's not an old dog yet, so you should be able to teach her some new tricks, Mr...:"

"Olmo, and we've been trying," he said as he began to unwrap Domino's lead.

"So, what half was I wrong about?" Brian asked, any trace of his earlier mood suddenly vanishing.

"Oh...Well, that's pretty personal…" Olmo said as his own demeanor changed. "Let's just say she still remembers my ex."

Brian's face was focused and determined after hearing that, something that set dread in Alejandra. She recognized what that meant and knew what had brought him to the thoughts that had caused it. She had shared those same dark assumptions for a moment after hearing Olmo's odd explanation, though she was able to deduce his actual meaning in the few silent seconds before she had turned to see Brian's reaction.

"Oh...So a girl throwing punches at a guy is why she got so upset…" She said with reservation, such a comment not being one she would have made under any other circumstance. It made her uncomfortable to say those words and Olmo even more so for hearing them, yet Brian seemed the most unsettled by them. One more set of words she would have to force herself to say.

Once the tension in the air reached the point where it was far more awkward to say nothing, it was broken.

"Well, we should get going," Brian said hurriedly "We were about done when all this happened anyway."

Olmo coughed falsely, "Right, and we need to get back to our walk. I'll let you get back to your date."

The air became tense again, but neither of them felt the need to correct the portly gentleman. With hurried farewells and a few quite whines from Domino, Olmo pulled her back on the path while the two teenagers gathered their things.

Making their way back to the bakery in temporary silence, Alejandra pressed Brian on this newly discovered interest of his.

"I didn't know you knew so much about dogs."

"I don't, really" He explained "Just enough of the basics."

"Well, where did you learn the basics then?"

"The streets. There's a reason they call where I grew up Dogtown, everyone had one and most people didn't bother to chain them up. You learn pretty quick what to watch out for."

"Wow, really? Between that and everything else you tell me about where you grew up, it sounds even worse than it is here."

"Oh, the dogs weren't all that bad once I understood them. Only time I got bit is when I was like five and too dumb to know better. It was just a Chow though, so it wasn't a big deal. Most of them just kept to themselves and didn't wander too far from home, and the ones that were in pack let you off once you got to know 'em."

"Having packs of wild dogs roaming around at all is not even close to what I'd describe as 'Not that bad'."

"They weren't all that wild, not most of them anyway, and they were fine with people as long as we treated each other right. They usually just messed with dogs from other streets and even then, things almost never got bloody."

"Oh...Did your dog ever get hurt like that?"

"What? We didn't have a dog, what made you think that?"

"You said everyone had one where you lived."

"Everyone but us, Mom said since everyone else had a dog that we didn't need one."

Alejandra could hear the angst barely obscured by those words and found herself unable to blame him for it.

"Not many happy memories of home then, huh?"

"It wasn't all bad." Brian shrugged "Least we didn't live across the bay. Even at their worst, people still acted like people. Can't say that for most San Franer's."

"Oh, really? I know California, in general, is supposed to be this big meme with the other states but is all that really true for them?"

"Eh, kind of. San Francisco's where all the money is and where all the people used to being in money live. Doesn't help how high and mighty they act when they all either live off their parent's money or the government's."

"That doesn't really sound like the most unbiased opinion."

"It isn't, but they've always been weirdos over there, even before the split."

Having finally reached that particular chapter of American history in her schooling, she quickly realized what event was referring to.

"Oh, so the Armstrong act didn't turn out too well for you guys?"

"Didn't turn out to well for any of us, really, not that we'd admit it. I barely know the first thing about politics and even I know how bad of an idea it was to give us all the power to be that crap to each other."

"It's not like you guys actually split up, you're still the United States when it comes down to it, the Crisis proved that."

"During it sure, but Arizona sure didn't waste time putting the wall between us back up. Can't even really blame them on that one, though, they get more cartel drugs from us then they do from Mexico."

"Did they really need a wall for that, though? Couldn't they have just talked it out?"

"Probably, but that would mean we'd have to admit we might be wrong to another state, and that's never going to happen. We almost had another civil war the last time a state tried to change another's mind, it's why Armstrong got elected in the first place."

"Part of the reason why you came to Mexico before another state, I imagine."

"You know it. I probably could have gotten into Nevada if I wanted to, but I used my gut on this one, definitely paid off. Cleaner air, cleaner streets, plenty of work, and way realer people."

Sensing its cue, fate had collided with him. It felt like crashing into a wall of solid metal because that is what it was. An omnic, one of standard design but heavy modification with an unmistakable purple light motif, had run into Brian and was not staggered by even a centimeter by the human obstruction. Despite how little it had affected him, the omnic responded with uneven and oddly precise anger.

"Hey, watch it, kike! What, to jewwy to get glasses?"

It was convenient for many to forget that the racial intolerance between humans and omnics ran both ways, and how specific it was to certain groups doubly so. It was of no help that omnics could easily install themselves with rudimentary scanning technology, something meant to be banned by international law, just enough to give them a rough outline of any humans genetic makeup. Brian never cared much for his heritage, his only knowledge of it coming from a Grandmother he had only met twice, but that hadn't stopped him from retaliating the last time he had been demeaned for it. One of the most rewarding parts of his bouts for him had been putting people in their place for doing so.

He wasn't sure what to do with the anger roiling within him, a human trying to fistfight an omnic was little more than a suicide attempt and even if he had a chance at succeeding he had no assurance that society would give him a pass for it. Human-on-omnic violence was still a very real thing and Mexico was rife with it given the losses they had taken during the Crisis. Brian had doubts that even if he could make things escalate to the point where it would be self-defense that it would be seen as such if California was any indication of the rest of the world.

Alejandra didn't even need to look to see Brian's silent fury, she would have felt the same way were she the target of such prejudice. She knew that he was already running through his plans of attack, surely knowing all would fail but not truly caring. Pride was a deadly thing, as her local padre had been so adamant to remind her each sunday.

"I can see well enough to know a balless shitheel when one's in front of me.", Brian suddenly and clumsily quipped.

" _It can't be my fault, that's how I win_." He stood tall and defiant, the seven-foot man of iron would dwarf him at regardless of any posture, but the language was clear. Alejandra grasped his forearm before he could advance further, shaking her head with pleading eyes once theirs met. He had spoken of his feelings on being the victim of prejudice in the past after much pressure from Alejandra, she didn't entirely believe his claim that he was 'Used to it by now'.

" _There's no way this isn't a trap, it was way too specific of an insult and he's a Los Muertos. There's no reason for an omnic to come to a park alone unless he was on business and Brian's done enough to get on their nerves by now_." She had concluded but hadn't been given the time to explain a single word of before the omnic's next precision cut.

"What, this your bitch?" he had jeered with an electronic-tuned laugh.

"The only bitch here is you." Brian snapped back. He kept his tone calm, but the force he had used to shake Alejandra from him betrayed the illusion as he fumbled an insult back. "And she has twice the balls you'll ever have."

Somehow, it was that roundabout compliment that offended Alejandra the most.

"I was talking about you, pussyboy." Like most omnics, this offender had no face as a human would recognize it, but his voice carried his smug amusement well enough. "And two times zero is still zero, you brainlet chode. What, can't do math when you not counting shekels?"

Brian lamented the fact that he had left his wrench back at _Panadería Las Nieblas_ more than any other mistake he had made in his life thus far. He had always taken a secret pleasure whenever he could deliver his attempts at justice against those who spat the same bigotry he had seen so hypocritically ignored by his peers. His mother had told him as a young boy to not speak of the heritage he knew little of other than the name, so learning why once he disobeyed and learned some of the other, harsher, names for it.. Brian had lived fifteen years under such hollow values, he refused to have it return to him unpunished for even a moment.

Even considering the computer mind the metal man possessed, his reply felt far too rehearsed to Alejandra's ears. Who this omnic was eluded her for but a moment before the engraving of an Aztec weapon upon his clearly customized arm entered her sight. She knew of Tepoztli by reputation as one of the few of the sentient machines employed by Los Muertos due to the remaining bad blood of the Omnic Crisis and the sheer amount of violence he had achieved thanks to that fact. It was not his original name, strange as those often were as most members of his race simply choose their own moment after their creation. He shared it with the bronze-edged weapon of the Ancient Aztecs that simply translated to 'Metal Axe', and that alone spoke volumes of his purpose here.

The baker's daughter firmly grasped the would-be hero by the shoulder before he had the chance to lunge forward and sully that title.

"It's a trap." She whispered through her teeth, holding back an insult toward his obstinance.

"I don't care!" Was his reply as he tried to free himself again, but her strength surprised him yet once more.

"I'm not letting you throw everything away just to prove a point!" She declared aloud. "He might deserve it, but think about what you'd be losing for one second!" She turned sharply to face the man of iron as she continued her justified tirade, "It's Santana, isn't it? If he wants him gone, the doctor's said he'd be well enough to make the trip back in a week. And besides, he wouldn't be making trouble if you weren't sending it to him all the time!"

Brian was taken aback by the vigor she had put into her speech, even if he had said the same things to himself before, each word felt like a revelation coming from her lips. Perhaps she had more sway over his feelings then he realized. Perhaps he just didn't trust the argument when it came from his own head. Brian was not entirely sure why it had smothered the flames of his righteous anger. It did little to put him at ease, however, the accusations she had thrown at the metal man had come too naturally and too pinpoint. Santana's odd lack of a threat to her safety while reaching for the courier's other loved ones well out of his reach echoed in his mind as he looked to her now.

Alejandra was also not freed from her worries once she looked deep in his eyes and saw what he hid behind them. Pride and rage were not all that clouded his judgment. Fear added to the storm of emotion. It made no sense to her at first, but as she pulled the pieces together from the glimpses of Brian's past he had told her of, she realized just what this fear was. It was the fear of failure, of not living up to the impossible standard he had set for himself. Somewhere within his warped mind, he had decided that leaving this hate go unanswered would be a betrayal of everything he believed.

Alejandra found herself cursing Tracer's name again, despite her finer reasoning telling her the fault laid in Brian's hands.

The omnic had no way of showing his delight at their silent exchange on his face, working around this by injecting it into an exaggerated mocking tone. "Shifty-eyed yid was probably trying to cop a feel or flinch my wallet, probably both since he's a Hollywood heeb."

Even considering his status in Los Muertos and the dubious concept of political immunity, this round of verbal abuse seemed too extreme to be natural to Alejandra. She knew Brian wasn't foolish enough to not see that as well, but seeing his fists still curled at his side told her that he stood by his stance of not caring. She only just stopped him from making another challenging stride forward.

"We're done playing your sick game" Alejandra proclaimed as she turned back to Brian, "We have better things to do than listen to anything he has to say, let's head back home." She looped an arm through the one at his side, still coiled to strike. He still wasn't comfortable with such a gesture, but he agreed with the sentiment and turned his back to the steely anti-semite.

" _She's right. I hate that she's right, but she is,_ " he admitted to himself, " _That self-loving skinjob probably want dirt on me to get me in his fight hole. Smart way to stick a fork in me, I'll give him that."_ He slipped his arm away from Alejandra's as they walked toward the park exit, silently showing his appreciation with an awkward half smile.

Tepoztli, however, was far from finished. He used one final gambit to raise the would-be hero's ire to its boiling point.

"Oh, running away? Guess that's to be expected, trying to dodge me like your kind dodged the o-"

The entire park heard the distinctive clang of rock on metal. The proverbial fork had been stuck into Brian and he cast the first stone in kind. Despite the ferocity of his row with the man of iron, only now did they gain onlookers they did not behold the young man in a sympathetic light. Multi-colored liquid crystal bled from the omnic's shattered eye lens, though given the shape and size of them, it would have been more impressive if the courier _hadn't_ managed to hit one. Tepoztli had never benefited so greatly from the fact that he could not smile.

Brian didn't need to look to see Alejandra's silent fury. He felt the same way about himself, even if he didn't let it show. He could claim it was a fit of righteous anger that drove a rock into his hand, many would even agree with him, but that didn't change the fact that it was a blind rage. He didn't even realize he had entered his familiar combat stance on reflex as neurons fired to find him a way out this situation. All he could find, however, was an unbroken string of the most colorful words of the English and Spanish languages.

The omnic tumbled the jagged stone onto the flattened bridge of his iron foot, not needing to use what humans might misunderstand as his wounded sight. It wasn't particularly large at 3.1 by 2.8 inches and 22.4 ounces, but that made it a perfect projectile by human standards. He had noticed the quick glance the courier had taken at the ground where it laid as the baker's daughter tried to usher him away. This boy clearly had a good eye and a better arm, precisely the sort of qualities that Santana was after. Mirroring the unseen finesse Brian had used to acquire his now slightly-chipped instrument of vengeance, Tepoztli tossed the stone mere inches from his foot and kicked it with the side of his heel directly into his hand.

"Well, David" The omnic mocked one final time "Meet Goliath."

Brian never thought that any other pain could compare to the burning lead that had burrowed its way through his skull, but the sensation of a rock shattering three ribs into his lungs at one hundred miles an hour disabused him of that notion. Unable to posture any longer, he tried to scream in pain, but only managed to retch up blood onto his hoodie. He hadn't even had the chance to realize that that blow had forced him to the ground. There was another scream, one that had the chance to sound in proper, it sounded like Alejandra, but Brian couldn't be sure as agony robbed him of his focus.

Rolling onto his open palms, he coughed deep red onto the stone in his failed attempts to stand back up. Alejandra was already at his side, trying to help him up while shouting for help in ways Brian half-heard. The fear returned and he answered it the same way as before, replacing it with anger. Reaching for the rock, he hadn't the chance to curl a single digit before all the bones in his hand were crushed. He wasn't even given the time to feel the pain before the omnic's knee rocketed into his nose. It was an odd mercy, in the end, as it robbed him of consciousness and his suffering. The price of failure paid in part.


	12. Chapter 12: Ghost Eye

Chapter 12: Ghost Eye

* * *

The orange light told him it must be evening, but he saw no sun. Everything else here had no color, no features, and offered no way out with only a few cracks between them revealing that anything laid beyond. They were amorphous, towering things, conforming to no material logic, much less architectural design. At times, they appeared to be massive structures bearing the vaguest of similarities to the cityscapes of the first world. At others, they were mountains with polygonal crags of an impossible contradiction, being too smooth to grip and sharp to the touch. They merged with one another in a senseless unity, a skyscraper one foot then slab rock another, and only breaking just above his reach, where a warm glow pierced through to mock him.

It was a labyrinthian place, both in construction and in the concept of its very existence, and he had no way to explain how he had come to be here. But why did it all seem so familiar? He could recall everything else that mattered, his creed and accomplishments most of all, but the finer details before he wandered under these spires eluded him. The last clear memory he held onto was his arrival in Veracruz and the girl named Alejandra. He kept her close in his mind as he attempted to navigate the senseless design of this impossible maze, reunion the closest thing he had to a goal at the moment.

There were no sounds to hear and no sights other than the massive grey mounds that made his prison, but his sense of smell caught something. It was a crisp, refreshing scent, unmistakable as anything but water and lacking the tang of the sea. It was either a lake or fresh water reservoir, judging by the intensity. He was not thirsty, but it was his only lead to something other than endless grey.

Tracking the scent, he stalked through the misbegotten halls to the point of exhaustion before he found what he sought. Stepping into the warmth of the light, he was more pleased to be free of the constricting grey than anything else. A clearing was the lake's home, no boundaries in sight but the ones behind him. The water seemed to glow an inviting shade of orange from its surface, despite there being no sun visible in the sky. However, staring upward for the first time in what could have been hours, he realized that there was no sky at all. Worrying as that was, he kept his focus on the water, deep blue, clean, and with an unfamiliar, but friendly reflection staring back at him with an open grin.

He saw himself as an Australian shepherd with a shaggy, yet handsome merle coat. The tip of one of his ears was bitten off, the size of the mark indicated it was lost in a fight with another dog, one larger than himself. Most jarring were his pale blue eyes, ghost eyes as they were better known, something that was both a gift and a curse for the breed. Regardless of his worries, that long road here had left him with a brutal thirst. He only needed to lean a few inches down to the surface to satiate it, lapping up the water with a familiarity that didn't feel wholly natural. It did nothing to slake his thirst. Its flavor was as full and robust as one could expect from water, but no refreshment came from it. If anything, it felt like each ounce only added to his thirst. Assuming it to be a trick of the mind, he persevered despite the futility of the moment.

He drank and drank, even as the lake began to shrink and he had to walk further in to continue. In truth, he did not notice the change and the instinctual movement he had taken to compensate for it. Deeper and deeper in, the thirst only became more agonizing and he was lost to the frenzy of trying to release himself from the pain. There was no satisfaction to be found in the water, even what little taste it once held had left, but he had come too far to stop now and instinct told him to push on. Then, the repulsive flavor of mud met his tongue and he looked up to see the lake had been drained, emptied to satisfy his desires.

Looking back, he saw only a solid wall of grey earth and much of the same in all directions. Defining all logic, he now found himself at the bottom of a dank hole with only the light of the distant sun as his companion. The thirst clung even tighter to him, burning into his throat and he scratched at the walls in desperation. There was little point in struggling, the colorless sludge was far too thick and his claws too short to make any progress digging. There was no flaw in the wall's formation, they were purely vertical and offered no notches or cracks he could attempt to climb with, difficult as that would have been for his canine form. He was completely and utterly trapped.

Exhaustion and despair forced him to his side, lying on the damp ground and staring at the sky. The wide opening above his prison gave him a clear view of what was now the night sky and the stars unobstructed by clouds or light pollution. It was the same sky he'd become used to sleeping under before he had met Alejandra. He whined at the thought of her, it was only natural for a dog to grow sorrowful when separated from its pack.

With her dominating his thoughts, he realized just what cluster of stars he was gazing at. The twin giants of Pollux and Castor burned bright as he recognized the constellation of Gemini, her birth-sign. As much as he had feigned a lack of interest in superstitions like Astrology, his curious nature lead him to study it after that fateful day when he...Couldn't remember. The finer details about himself were still elusive in this forsaken place, but the feelings remained. He was confined in both body and mind and he didn't need to know a thing about his zodiac to know why he hated that.

He lethargically flopped back onto his feet, searching the sky for his own marker of birth. He soon found Kaus Australis, shining as the brightest marker of the bow of the great centaur.

Sagittarius.

The sign of warriors and sages alike, of the free and the free-thinker, and many other things that seemed too poignant to be a coincidence to him. Even his preference for the color of blue was something the pseudoscience foretold. He knew he was destined for greatness deep in his bones, even the stars said it was so, so how could he allow himself to be trapped like this?

He felt anger now, hot and heavy, threatening to eclipse the dry heat in his throat. Anger for his foolish drives overpowering his reason, anger at the false promises he had been offered, and anger at needless cruelty of this place that had spawned them. He bore his fangs to the centaur, wishing he'd fallen under a lesser constellation rather than suffer the lies of the glory it had told him. He remembered pain before his arrival here, pain and strife, but never any achievement beyond a moment's victory.

Languishing in the dark hole without food or water had left him without any sense of time and the eternal night did nothing to help him. He had tried to sleep, but the agony of starvation denied him even that. He was in no condition to try to climb again, even if there was even a sliver of a chance he would make it. He was going to die here. He did not fear the end or the pain that would slowly bring it to him, but the thought of it being like this, a death without purpose, that terrified him.

Purpose. Memory suddenly returned to him as he chewed the word over in his brain. He was of purpose, he knew that much if the stars and his instincts we to be believed. A battle that wasn't his, a woman that eclipsed Alejandra in importance, and the destiny she had revealed to him. Sensing its cue, the sky shifted with his thoughts and he beheld a new set of stars.

The great Nemean Lion, the marker of Leo, was his to observe and its meanings his to ponder. The sign of the dominant and the jovial, the soul of a lion with the heart of a kitten, as one of the more pretentious astrology websites had described it. It fit her all too well, even her name matched the mark as well as Lena's preferred color of orange. Their signs were brothers of the element of fire, something that he both did and did not find agreeable. The peak of life she had achieved being something the stars deemed possible enticed him, but the two of them being incompatible was beyond disappointing. He wasn't so great of a fool to truly think that would be possible given the many, many barriers between them, but to have it so blatantly denied to him only dug the wound deeper.

As he gazed unblinking to the constellation, he noted an odd discrepancy in the formation of the stars, namely one that should not have been there. In between Epsilon and Kappa Leonis was an orange sun, one that burned brighter than even Regulus, that served as an eye in the rough mapping of the shape of the lion. Was it there before and he only noticed it now? He discarded the thought immediately, knowing he could not have missed such a glaring change until now. A new star had suddenly appeared in the sky.

On his feet now, all of his focus was locked on the orange sphere, something about it stirring half-remembered feelings within him. His forehead pulsed with a daggering pain as he gazed deeper into the burning plasma giant. It was no simple headache, as his first instinct told him, it was far too focused and far too great of a coincidence for it to occur now. Muscling through his agony, he forced buried memories from his mind and soon discovered why the pain felt so familiar.

The landscape may have morphed into an unrecognizable form, there being a landscape at all was a massive difference, but the feeling of it had never left him. He had torn the half-existent memory from the black matter of his brain and knew the limbo he found himself in now to be all too familiar. The orange star expanded to a size that defied all scientific reason, absorbing its neighbors into one, terrible whole. In the death of over two-dozen stars, a black hole was born in the center of the impossibly sized sun. The all-encompassing, eternally judging eye of terror had returned. It spoke again without voice, without emotion, yet somehow with a precise sardonic venom.

 _Do you care now, Slayer?_

If there was meant to be any praise in that title, Brian did not want it.

"I didn't do anything wrong," He said, suddenly human once more "And I've never killed anyone!"

 _You would not be here if you did no wrong._

The Black said as the remaining stars joined it and wiped the sky clean and colorless, bringing it closer to how it first revealed itself.

 _And you may not have driven the blade, but do you truly believe that Inigo's death was not your fault?_

Brian struggled to respond at first, the idea of him being responsible for the gangster's death at the hands of his own comrades had weighed on his shoulders ever since Santana had told him of it. He had tried to keep the doubt from his mind by teaching Alejandra of his craft, and to some degree, he had succeeded, but the burden of guilt still weighed on him no matter how deep he tried to bury it.

"What else was I supposed to do? They could have killed Ale if I didn't jump them."

 _One life for another with you as the arbiter. Do you truly believe yourself qualified for such a role?_

It was with the utmost reservation that Brian told the truth.

"No, but someone needs to do it. I have the talent to make it happen and that makes me as qualified as anyone can be."

The laughter of the dark one came as an all-encompassing blast of white noise and an agonizing palsy surging through the courier's body.

' _Just because everyone else is worse doesn't make me good'_

The Black took great amusement at quoting the would-be hero's convictions from their last meeting.

 _You cannot keep your morals in line and yet you seek to enforce them for everyone else. Even you must realize the folly in that._

The terrible being's change of character not going unnoticed, Brian snapped back.

"And you know I was right this time! Three scumbags gang up on a girl and you're trying to act like I was the bad guy? I did nothing wrong, how was I supposed to know what Santana would do? I didn't even know he existed back then!"

 _The action was not flawed, the morality was not flawed, you were._

"What do you want from me!? Should I be crying after every punch or something? What's wrong with taking some enjoyment in doing the right thing?"

 _You do not fight for the sake of what is right in your mind, you fight simply for the pleasure of it. You may not wish to admit it, but it is dangerous to ignore the truth._

"Stop beating around the bush!" Brian's fury finally reached its apex "What in the hell do you actually want?"

 _Yours is the path to ruin, Slayer. Soon enough, that title will be more than mere jest. Alejandra wants to help you. She wants you to be happy. Let her._

Brian began to chuckle, not in humor, but in disbelief. "That's it? I'm happy enough with my life and I'm making the world better for everyone else by living it. Even me staying isn't going to change that."

 _And what reason do you have to fight for the world, other than your childish lust for a woman who doesn't even know your name?_

Brian was wrong, he had not reached the height of his rage, not until now.

"I outta piss on you for that! I'm not some fanboy, I'm way beyond that! I found my purpose in life and she helped me find it, that's all."

 _And this destiny is to starve to death in a pit of your own creation while you stumble your last in the all-too-fitting form to a mangy canine?_

At that, Brian clawed his way up the walls again with all hell's fury intending to make good on his threat. His ears rang and his muscles spasmed as the noiseless laughter returned and nearly drove him tumbling back to earth. The uproarious silence had done nothing to stay his advance, making a 30-foot climb on a flat wall in mere moments with newly regained hands. Each flare of pain seemed to strengthen him as his fingers sank deeper into the dirt and the rage beating through his skull drove him higher. His strength had returned to him, malnourishment only a memory now that he was enveloped in his new purpose as he bared his fangs to the Eye. It was pointless and it was petty, but proving this new adversary wrong was all he had now.

 _Still a slave to the hunt. I suppose there is nothing I can say to stop you. I can only hope you heed my words when she speaks them._

From the formless void of the iris, a shimmer of golden flame cascaded across the sky. The comet trailed with brilliant streaks of royal blue and burning orange, repopulating the sky with glimmering stars it left in its wake. The beauty of the celestial rebirth brought pause to the growling hound, if only for a moment. He wanted to admire the sheer spectacle of such a divine phenomenon, but he had a duty to see his self-issue task though, no matter how small it may have been. He was of purpose, that's all that mattered to him.

Not so much as a moment after he had made his decision that the sky caught fire. In the latest defiance of physics, the comet has shifted in its path and began descending. It fell with a speed that defied all logic, but that was to be expected, insane as this realm was. This impossibility was something Brian could not help to stop and witness, only continuing his climb when he realized where it would be falling.

He clamored diagonally, attempting to evade the blazing chunk of space debris without losing the ground he had struggled so hard to gain, but the sheer speed of the meteorites approach denied him that path to safety. A drop back to the bottom would be his surest route, but he quickly discovered another flaw of the canine form in that he could not look down without hitting his chin or twisting his body in a way that would lose him his already unsure grip.

The golden flame of the comet became a furious orange as it entered the atmosphere and despite Brian's best efforts in escaping to the opposite wall of the pit, it still seemed to be heading straight for him. His options were limited to continuing to climb and try outrunning it once he reached the high ground or dropping down and hoping that he had not come too far for it to be fatal. Considering how driven he was and the ability he possessed, Brian figured that he had gone well past the point of a death drop and as such, he tightened his grip with one hand and reached higher with another.

The desperation to reach the top had served him well, the stories worth of earth disappearing even faster now. The comet sped forth for its final attack as Brian just barely reached the top with barely a breath in his lungs. The incandescent space rock had grown very small now as it came so close to its goal, but Brian had tossed himself over the breach with just enough remaining strength to clear the area and look back on the impact as it fell straight down the pit.

"I win…" He exhaled with a toothy grin to the one he had defied.

Arrogance, as it often did, doomed the would-be hero. The impact was sundering, defying the size of the meteorite itself. The ground exploded with megaton force, sending stone shrapnel flying with lethal force. One rock among thousands found its way to Brian, a stone half the size of his palm, and plunged itself straight through his chest. Bone and sinew collapsed in on themselves and tore organs apart as he flew backward through the air. Blood catapulted through the air with a gurgled attempt at a scream of pain. The Black's laughter returned and his forehead burst open with all the gunshot that had first sent him here. Brian-

 _ **...**_

-Opened his eyes. The decoration of the place told him he was back in Hernandez General, though naturally not in the same recovery room. The saturation of unnatural light told him it was most likely night, and from that, he assumed he had only been here for a few hours. Memory returned in an instant as the nature of his injury was far different from when he was last here. Dream or vision, more of his time with the Black had stayed with him than before. He swore to keep a tight grip on these already fading recollections, knowing by instinct they held infinitely more value than any other thought in his head.

"Finally awake, eh?" A voice slimed out from the only corner untouched by the light. Brian knew the voice immediately, even if they had met only once. "Hell of a thing, ain't it? Medicine, I mean." Santana continued as he leaned forward from the visitor's chair "Get a lung punctured and you're back up in eight hours. Weren't like that back in the day, lost a lot of prospects to stuff half as bad as you've gotten in two weeks of being here."

Brian wanted to leap from his bed and there and then, but that kind of thinking is what put him there in the first place. He listened with anger, the emotion causing almost unnoticeable phantom pains beneath his chest. The feeling told him he would not be in the condition to win a fight against him even if he did try and that only added to the pain.

"Can't say it's cheap though," The gang leader stood and leered down at the would-be hero as he carried on. "It might be a shock to a bay-boy like you, but down here you have to prove you're worth something to get out of the grave. Getting your lungs ripped open ain't gonna be cheap and if you have to go through an assault case in court too…"

"2281 Porraz Avenue, 10 to 4 am, you're getting 10 matches." Brian cut straight to the point, anger seeping through his teeth with each word.

"3K a fight? You ain't Alexander, boy. Try 15 fights, and that's only if they're quality." Santana hissed.

"Good, now piss off and let me sleep." Brian lashed with venom

Santana chuckled at his arrogance and left the courier in silence.

"' _Yours is the path to ruin, Slayer'_." The words echoed in his mind as he stared at the ceiling, dreading how he could explain all his failure to Alejandra.

* * *

Sneak peek at Part 13: /watch?v=eb0D0-aMhpY


	13. Chapter 13: Vemana

**Chapter 13: Vemana**

* * *

The name, as he learned in the following days of his debt payment, meant 'sacrifice' in the ancient Nahuatl language of the Aztecs. The reason for the name was obvious, given the cheapness of life in the underworld. He had made it abundantly clear to Santana that killing was not his business, being careful to phrase it in a way that did not paint it as a lack of will. An unnaturally white grin told him he had failed.

Only seconds into making the decision to rush out of his hospital room to make good on his debt early had he realized how grave a mistake it was. He was not cursed by the same phantom weight in his bones he had felt after a hollow point had punched through his skull, but even he understood that walking into a fight only hours after surgery was beyond stupid. Worse still was his reason for doing so was simply to boost his own ego, to have one win under his belt after failing so spectacularly. He knew he could not face Alejandra with the weight of that failure in his heart, so he kept walking, cursing at himself with each step.

Poraz avenue, this corner of it, in particular, was as seedy as Brian as expected. There was more graffiti than paint on the buildings and not a trashcan insight that wasn't being used as firepit for the legions of homeless. It was as if it had been skipped over during the great reconstruction, and skipped in many places during its construction as well. They came to a run-down yard full of storage units for rent, all of them warped and dented from multiple break-ins over the years. They walked past a security booth housing a lethargic nightman who regarded Santana with a casual nod with so much as looking up from his holoscreen.

" _Are boothers always this crap at their jobs?_ " Brian thought in reference to the many 'security agents' he had met in his time, this one ironically being the most competent by virtue of willful negligence rather than pure incompetence.

The gangster and the courier walked through the barren lot, the former far in the lead on a route etched deep into his memory. They were not alone, bodyguards, likely the same ones he had seen at Bertorelli's, had stayed twenty paces behind them ever since they left the Hospital. There was little point in them following, Brian had no intention of attacking the gang leader now. He wanted to, and he knew he ought to, but it would be a pointless death to uphold a pride that had just been dragged through the dirt. He followed along now only to wash away the stains on his pride.

They came at last to a unit that was, apparently, their destination. It bore no distinctive marks that differentiated it from the dozens of others they have weaved through, save for the lock still being intact. At Santana's mere presence, the lock was undone and the metal sheet door slid back up into the roof. With unmistakably false curtness, he gestured inward.

"Right this way," he said with snide.

The would-be hero begrudgingly obeyed and the guards followed them in only moments later. In contrast to the exterior, the unit had not a scratch on it, and Brian quickly deduced why. The door fell back down with a loud clang and left them all in darkness. He could see the obvious setup and how he was expected to react, giving no reaction to deny Santana that small amount of satisfaction.

The floor beneath them began to shudder with a wrenching mechanical whine as Brian's suspicions were confirmed. The roar of a crowd seeped through the cracks as they descended, slowly eclipsing the grinding mechanism in volume. Light finally pierced through the gaps as Vemana was revealed to him through a protective wall of glass. Brian could not hold back his fascination despite his early resolve.

The arena below him was more akin to a professional fighting ring then what its name suggested, in many ways being more impressive than anything he had seen on Holovids. The arena was surrounded by glowing golden light, leaving not a single detail unknowable to the hungry eyes of the audience. The clientele was also no surprise to him, desperate dredges with too much loose change and Los Muertos grunts in the front rows and their superiors, along with the more sociopathic members of Dorado's upper class, at the high rises.

Two aspiring champions battled in an iron cage with gauze wrapped fists as their only weapons. The first fighter was a tall young afro-Mexican man who wore no shirt as he fought. He held a traditional boxing stance, but Brian doubted he had been properly trained by the way he threw each punch. He put too much weight into each hook and straight as if he were trying to punch through his opponent. Jabs were few and far between which irritated Brian as they had been his most effective attacks against the challenger, who had been dodging his clumsier throws.

The other combatant was someone he recognized almost instantly, despite his already flawed handsomeness still being marred by the new bruises he had left him with. Cesar was clad in the same rough-cut jacket and loose jeans, apparently not caring for the advantages his opponent gained by refraining from most clothing. But those details were almost meaningless when compared to his stance, or rather, Brian's.

His adaptation was sloppy but no sloppier than his opponent's fighting style, and far more refined than the courier's attempts at copying his. Regardless, he still struggled with it, as his movements suggested he was reeling from a liver blow he was unable to deflect as he normally would. Brian held no ill will toward Cesar, despite his profession and how they had met because of it. There was nothing he saw as a higher mark of quality than martial prowess, and Cesar held that in ample supply. Perhaps it was foolish to assume his imitation of the would-be hero's fighting style was done out of respect, as the latter had with his, but he could not interpret it as anything else.

Cesar remained still in the ring but prepared to counterattack, keeping to his standard tactics despite the change in style. It was a viable enough way to make use of kickboxing, Brian himself had more often than not used it this way, even when he would have preferred the direct approach. The defensive option worked in his favor as his opponent had chosen to do the opposite and threw out punch after punch, landing none of them. The one that had managed to meet flesh before Brian was here to observe had put doubt in the young gangster's mind, preventing him from attempting to strike back in the ample fractions of seconds necessary to turn the tide.

Even from his vantage point far above the ring, Brian could tell how frustrated he was in his performance against a comparatively amateur opponent. Weaving past another flurry of blows, Cesar was tiring out faster than his challenger and it was clear to both him and his most adamant observer that it was long past time to go on the attack. With one more dodge in his count of hundreds, Cesar threw a southpaw hook for the said of the other man's jaw. Fatigue had set in deeper than he had realized, however, and he only succeeded in glancing his chin. A shard to tooth flew from his mouth, but this was far from enough to give Cesar victory.

Before the fist had even reached him, the boxer was already swerving to strike back. Ducking down and rushing forward, he shot up with an uppercut to repay his chipped tooth thirty-two times over. Cesar, despite the rigors of exhaustion, was not so addled by it to leave such a massive hole in his defense. Spearing down with his elbow, bone met bone in a painful collision that left both sides gritting teeth and breathing swears. Cesar was the first to gather himself in immeasurably short moments after the impact, running toward his opponent and-

The ring disappeared behind a concrete wall, the elevator had entered the facility proper. Brian had almost forgotten where he was, having grown so invested in a fight he had seen only moments of between two men he ought to hate. For a brief moment, the grey gave way to a glass doorway that revealed a lavishly decorated entryway with two great bronze desks covered in holoscreens and surrounded by half-crazed humanity. Judging by the fistful of pesos some of the horde carried and the visibly armed guards standing at their perimeter, this was clearly the betting station. Criminal and unscrupulous citizen alike clambered and shouted, desperate to be the first to throw their ill-earned money to fate's will. Brian didn't even have the time to sneer at them before grey filled his sight again as they continued to descend.

"Really is a thing of beauty ain't it?" Santana suddenly broke the silence. "We've been building this place for almost thirty years now. Started out as just that metal box back when we were just another street gang. Sure, nothing's ever gonna beat the money the drugs and guns bring in, but Vemana will always be closer in my heart, even if I wasn't making bank off of it." Brian was less than moved by the criminal captain's musings, knowing from the moment he had seen him that he had never set foot into the ring of honor.

"Yeah, I figured you'd be the type to enjoy watching sweaty young boys duking it out." Brian chided. He realized the hypocrisy of such a childish insult, given how violently he had corrected people for falsely claiming similar things about him. He didn't care. If it got under Santana's warped skin by even a fingernail, it more than justified it to him.

"Oh, we have plenty of female fighters, even a few in-betweeners. Not all that many though, so it wasn't easy setting up a fight for you." Santana took the insult in stride, showing no reaction, though that could easily be due to the muscle weakness from his unnecessary biotic use. The silence lasted for far too long as the would-be hero searched for an equal response and they arrived at their location before he could find it.

They stepped out into a lavishly decorated hallway, its walls dotted with massive portraits of champions of the arena's sorted twenty-year history and their moments of greatest glory not far from them. Unsurprisingly, they were near exclusively members of Los Muertos, though Brian recognized Dingo Joe, a now-famous Australian Muay Tai fighter in much younger days and, oddly enough, Leo Hirose, the most infamous bike thief in North America with over two hundred confirmed thefts to his name. Few others were present in the hall as they walked on, most of the other guards and the rest looked to be relaxing competitors.

Two such young men stood in a doorway having an inane conversation Brian hadn't cared to listen to as he peered through the space between them. The way opened to a wide-open room sparsely occupied by fellow competitors and decorated only by obscene graffiti, various gang tags, and the occasional bench. Brian was surprised to see such a place here, the locker room was a place of comradery, yet it existed here in the bowels of a modern gladiator ring built by a cutthroat gang of arms dealers and drug smugglers.

The thought of simple kinship between criminals seemed so obvious in hindsight, yet it had never occurred to Brian before.

" _They're still scum, they still deserve it,_ " he repeated in his head several times to try and cleanse the doubt from his mind. It was dangerous for such a simple thing to unbalance his humors so easily, but the idea that his enemies lead more balanced lives than he did taxed him.

A wide swinging door shoved his thoughts away as he realized they had reached the end of the hall. An office more lush and opulent than the way that preceded it was home to towering marble columns and velveteen carpeting leading to a fine camphor wood desk at which sat a man at odds with his environment. His face bore a passing resemblance to one that featured prominently in the pictures of the honored champions, just far older and far, far fatter. He was dressed finely in a pure white jacket studded with gold and amethyst jewelry that must have fit him well many years ago. It contrasted quite well with the dark brown tones of his skin, though any idea of style was lost with his quickly receding hairline. He grinned wide at the sight of Santana, chomping down tight on a sizable stogie that sprinkled ashes into a beard that camouflage them. His voice was as smoky as the stench of the room and as deep as his pockets as he greeted them.

"Hey hey hey, it's the king!", the obese man said in reference to Santana as he rose from his gilded chair. Only now did Brian see the considerable amount of muscle left in the man's wide frame, nearly all of it in his burly arms.

"Come on, Elvis, we all know there's only one king around here!" Santana replied with the first genuine smile Brian had seen from the gangster. He doubted that was the large man's real name though whatever meaning it held was beyond him.

"So this little _huevos_ is the Doomfist, eh?" he said with a chortle as he strode over. He was a massive in height as he was in width, standing a full foot and a half over Brian. He leered over the courier, sizing him up as he took a long drag of his cigar. Taking a knee to come eye level with him, Elvis let out a phlegmy laugh as he blew smoke in his face. "You sure this twink is up to it, boss? He's stringier than a chinaman's breakfast! I doubt he's last a round in the women's league!"

Brian only narrowly avoided curling his fists, more from a need to wave the sicken smoke away than self-control. He was only here because of the trouble listening to his raw emotion had brought him after all, but if this was another attempt to rile him up, what was their end for it? It had to be some form of test, some final gauge of his grit before he was thrown into the meat grinder.

"I came here to fight, not talk. Just set something up" Brian replied with a stern face he fought to keep when assaulted by the unfamiliar stench of tobacco. A slow chuckle rose from Elvis' belly and a quick knowing smile to Santana told him what he thought of Brian's posturing.

"Alright then Mr. Fister, you'll get your fight soon enough. We already set up a dance between you and little Miss Concita, and don't think that's us going easy on you. You get ten minutes prep since Cesar should be done with his match right about…" He trailed off as he sauntered back over to his desk and slid his finger over an inconspicuous button. "...Now." A holoscreen filled the center of the room, showing an exhausted young gangster being bathed in applause over a foe with a visibly broken arm.

Oddly, Cesar seemed unmoved by his own victory and the crowd's adoration, only passively raising an arm to acknowledge them. Brian wasn't quite sure what to take from that, whether they shared the same disgust for the praise of gawking bystanders who saw them as a novelty or if this was a more simple case of disappointment in his own failure to do better or some mix of both. As much as Brian held respect for the gangster for his skill, he preferred to believe the latter. He needed to avoid anything that would make him hesitate, especially now. "Your locker's number 1488" Elvis continued with a self-satisfied sneer at his doubly deep cut to the would-be hero. "I know you won't break any rules; there aren't any."

With that and a lack of cleverness on his part, Brian left for the locker room without another word. The two layabouts from before still blocked the doorway with their inane conversation. Vemana being what it was, he knew he would need to prove himself at every turn. and as such, resolved to make it through the door even if that meant he would have two fights before his first. Mentally preparing himself, he strode toward them projecting all his confidence forward. To his dismay, the two simply moved back to let him through without so much as a stutter in their exchange. There was no factor of fear in their decision, it was simply a natural courtesy and the awkwardness was physically painful for him. Worse still that if further cemented how far removed he had become from normal human interaction.

Avoiding eye contact and ignoring the few comments his fellow competitors shared amongst themselves, the less prejudiced amongst them referring to him as 'fresh meat'. None of them bothered to engage him in direct hazing, few bothered to notice him at all. He would have preferred it the other way, considering all he had done so far, but he caught himself for being vainglorious, that had put him on the ruinous path in the first place. Shaking off what he could remember of The Black, for now, he scanned through the lockers, disregarding all else.

Finding his own, he dwelled on its number, knowing the rough context of it but not the specific meaning, but an insult was still an insult no matter how little he understood it. The locker itself was in shockingly good condition with only a few spots of old glue from a torn off decal as the marks of its previous owner. It was a tall gym locker, top-of-the-line with a holo-interface, far more advanced than the practically ancient mechanical locks they had been forced to use at school. The keypad awaited a new code from him to make it truly his, so he gave it the date he took up the fist.

The door popped open to reveal an emptiness Brian had nothing to fill it with. This would be a no holds barred fight and he would need every tool at his disposal. He had never been in a real fight with a woman before, as he did not truly count his encounter with Widowmaker, but he figured the egalitarian thing to do was treat this Concita with the same taciturn brutality he applied in all of his battles. Regardless, he decided to leave out this particular detail when he confessed everything to Alejandra once he was done here.

He dwelled on what explanation might be even remotely sufficient while the minutes ticked by.


	14. Chapter 14: Pit Dogs

**Chapter 14: Pit Dogs**

* * *

Cesar intentionally hobbled his pace exiting the elevator, the painkillers that old drunk Morales had given him leaving much to be desired. Being hit in the first place was bad enough, but against a brand new pit dog and having it slow him down this much? That stung even worse than his liver. But he took some satisfaction in how the other man's arm must feel right now. Cesar still couldn't forgive himself for failing to deflect such a telegraphed move, even if he had been using an unfamiliar style. The crowd didn't seem to care for his failing, in fact, they loved it, but theirs was the last opinion he valued when it came to the art of fighting.

He walked past many trophies and baubles of matches years past that Santana had not earned on his way to the captain's private box seat. The room itself was a gaudy lounge room, full of swanky exotic leather furniture and the lingering smell of overpriced vodka. Cesar could already hear that particular brand of smarminess that he always used when he knew he had performed below his standards. Even after his failure against the American, the most he received was a sarcastic laugh and some chide for his taste in dress rather than any real reprimand. It was clear to him that Santana had some grand plan in mind for the would-be hero and his role in it was to be a footnote with only bruises to show for it.

The hushed mutter of a distant crowd and faint whiffs of the distinct stench of Cannabis told him he was close to the man who summoned him. Taking a long breath, Cesar walked through the open glass sliding door and into the box seat. Santana leaned back in his reclining chair, his ever-present bodyguards, Juan and Don, taking their places in the seats behind him. He took a long drag from a marijuana cigarette mounted in an almost comically long holder as he turned to face his subordinate. He exhaled with an open grin, the smoke breaching the gap in a repulsive fashion as it drifted to Cesar. Remaining stoic in the rancid cloud, he listened as that slimy tone crept into his ears.

"Ah, there's our boy!" Santana proclaimed in what Cesar could only assume was false joy given his failures today. "Come, take a seat." He gestured to an empty seat to his left as he gave the order. Being in no position to break ranks at the moment, Cesar obeyed, turning his head to exhale and take a quick breath as soon as Santana moved his attention away. "Saw the end of your fight as we were heading down."  
"Know your enemy…" Cesar preempted whatever insult Santana was leading into. "I work out how he fights, I'll beat him."  
"Oh?" The captain said, genuinely amused this time. "And what makes you think I'll let you?"

Cesar let his expressions speak for him and Santana's own stretched further as he explained. "That kid's a goldmine, six days out of getting a hollow point in the skull and he was able to take you down. One day with him in the ring'll make me enough to buy half those Guatemalans and a week'll buy me their whole damn cartel."  
" _If_ you can get him in the ring…" Cesar snidely amended.  
Santana's chuckle was low and his smile was wide enough to reveal the one space his tooth whitener had begun to fade as Elvis' next announcement from a box opposite theirs served as his response.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Golden City! We have a special match-up for you today! We've just had a challenge from a brand new pit dog I'm sure some of you will recognize from local news and the rest of you from the world news! Introducing the boy in blue that quite literally stopped a terrorist attack single-handed, I give you fine people: Brian 'Doomfist' Dailor!"  
Not all of the crowd cheered, but those that did were raving as he made his slow stride into the ring. Even in a place as low as this, Talon was thought of even lower. He cared little for the reverence he received, keeping his eyes locked on the opposite entryway, cracking tape-wrapped knuckles. Cesar could respect the indifference the American showed to the bloated masses, but his presence here remained baffling.

"Tezpoztli," Santana read his thoughts "Calling a Jew an oven-dodger tends to get them hot-headed, ironically enough." He hocked up phlegm as he laughed at his own joke, spitting into an ashtray before he continued. "He's only just out of the hospital. Only a punctured lung though, he can go the distance." Cesar wasn't quite sure what the term meant, but by the context and knowing Tezpoztli, he could only assume the worst. Still, the thought of a fighter of his caliber being tricked so easily into a fight he couldn't win seemed unbelievable and the idea that he had been beaten by such a fool was suddenly unacceptable. The cheers died down and Elvis continued before he had any real time to dwell on the supposed facts.

"And his opponent, A rising star on a six-win streak with fourteen career victories in only three weeks and sure to be a hundred more: Miss 'Whiplash' Concita!"  
Concita skipped and danced her way through the entryway, her face alight and waving to an equally jubilant audience. Concita wore a garb atypical for their gang, a warm yellow crop top that barely covered more than her visible sports bra did and a pair of tight false leather pants of sunset red that pushed the bounds of modesty, both of which were at odds with the rosary she was using to tie back her purple highlighted dirty blonde hair into a short ponytail. She and Cesar were the same age, though he was her superior in Vemana in terms of total victory. He had no high opinion of her, outside of her win record, finding her grating and often pretentious, but he didn't think her deserving of this. If what Cesar had seen and been taught was indicative of anything, women held far less physical strength than men and that was assuming both were putting in the same amount of exercise, which he could easily hazard to guess Brian had been getting more of.

There were no rules in Vemana banning women and men competing against each other, as there were no rules in general, but it was a rare sight even if the crowds showed little care even when all previous bouts of this nature had been entirely one-sided. Few fighters, even some of the most hardened of the gang that made sport here, were comfortable beating up women no matter how skilled they might be and Santana didn't enjoy having to pay out on almost unanimous bets, but this Brian was not that scrupulous. If he had any shame in what he was about to do, the American didn't show it on his face as he sized up Concita, paying a little too much attention to her legs for Cesar's liking.

The young gangster caught himself for his assumption, having already undersetimated the courier during their first encounter. Looking at the situation far more clinically, Concita had a clear advantage in reach, easily being eight inches taller than the half-sized hero. Cesar hadn't watched many female matches in his time at Vemana, but he understood that Concita had some skill in Taekwondo, or at least what passed for training for it in their corner of the world. The courier's best route to victory, by Cesar's reckoning, would be a highly aggressive approach to close the distance as he found his fighting style to be comparatively lacking in defensive options and Concita's style combined with her gender left counter-attacks far less effective.

Brian remained steadfast, all muscles coiled and ready to strike as Concita stretched in as distracting a fashion as she was willing to do in such a public place. The American wasn't falling for it, his poise showing no sign of weakness even as his opponent said something Cesar was unable to hear over the crowd but could easily guess the gist of it by her sultry demeanor. The whole idea of this match-up still did not sit well with him, and he let Santana know that.

"You really having him fight a girl?"  
"He didn't object to the idea. He's famous for punching a woman, after all."  
"She doesn't have a chance and the inbreds in the seats know it. How is this shit plan of yours supposed to make money?"  
"It's a long term investment, the kid may be a fighting genius but he's an emotional retard, this is just one more thing I can blackmail and guilt-trip him with. Besides, Whiplash has had it good for too long, she needs a reminder of where she sits on the ladder. You should know how that feels."

Elvis had impeccable timing when it came to cutting Cesar off. "Now, with no further ado: Pit dogs, show us what you got!" The ringing of a bell punctuated to start the first of Brian's many matches in the Sacrificial pit.

It was over in seconds.

Brian and Cesar proved to be of the same mind and he choose pure aggression with one large difference in method. He charged forward with furious speed while his opponent remained still in her stance, coiled and ready to strike with her sizable legs. The supposed hero, perhaps wishing to set a precedent or maybe to simply catch Concita unawares as she attempted to make her first strike, did the unexpectable. Stopping on a dime and taking a low-position, he threw all his momentum into a punch that landed square in one of the three places he ought not to lay his hands on. Shocked was an understatement for the crowd's aura, but none, other than Cesar, showed any disgust.

Without pausing in his attack, Brian shot his body upwards and his skull collided with her jaw as she recoiled. She staggered back as Brian shook off the force of his own blow, but he grabbed her by the arm before she could truly recover. Dizzied but not down, Concita snap kicked for his sensitive area, but he had expected as much and positioned his legs wisely to absorb the assault, though he nearly collapsed doing so. She shot out with a flurry of open-palmed attacks with her free arm, some making purchase with the side of his head, her painted nails scathing across his skin far too close to his eye, and the rest blocked by his arm. Lashing out from his defense with a backhanded strike that stunned her momentarily, he seized the opportunity to throw her to the ground while she was off-balance, the battle ending as her head slammed to the ground.

Mixed was a generous way to describe the audience's reaction. Fights in Vemana generally didn't last long, given the lack of restrictions, but this was a different level. Though not obvious to the uninitiated, Cesar could see the martial prowess on display, even in such short bursts. Skill trumped all in the ring and for all the victories under Concita's belt and what technique she was able to display in the slivers of time that Brian allowed, she simply could not compare. The courier was a hard-wired machine built for fighting and he would only grow greater the longer he stayed here. Cesar was told the same about himself not long ago.

The man who sang that praise, however, wasn't quite as impressed. Santana contemplated as the supposed hero looked to their seats. He had regret written on his face as he wiped the blood from it. Cesar had a hard time believing it, he had snuck one too many smiles during his fight for that. The captain of Los Muertos leaned forward as he exhaled another nauseating puff of smoke in Cesar's direction.  
"Quality," he said, enunciating every syllable to the courier who could not hear over the unsure cheers and jeers of the crowd.  
Frustrated and defiant, Brian shot a glare and said an unheard, but well understood, single word.  
"Next."  
Santana grinned his jackal grin and nodded to Elvis.

"Now is that a first impression or is that a first impression, my beautiful people?! But don't you think we could give the boy an even warmer welcome!?" With only those two sentences, the crowd was whipped right back into a frenzy. There was a reason Santana kept him around even if his glory days were behind him, Elvis was king of the ring even when he wasn't standing in it. "And what could be warmer than the scorching hot style of our next contender: Jorge 'Hot Rod' Hernandez!?"

Right on his cue, Jorge made his entrance, striding out with self-assured swagger. He was clad in fine leathers far above his status in the gang, only gaining the custom-tailored clothing through a series of loans and favors from his comrades. More noticeable was his well-oiled hairstyle that was over a century out of fashion and what had earned him his dubious moniker. He hadn't cared that the name was intended as an insult, it was his style and no petty jeer would damage his pride. Cesar could respect that sort of confidence and on the two occasions they faced in the ring, he saw it extended to his fighting style as well. It seemed Santana would be getting his quality match.

As the Hot Rod strode over the unconscious body of Whiplash, Brian began searching his opponent for a clue to victory he would never find in a stance that did not exist. Cesar had made the same mistake in thinking there was anything one could glean from Jorge's casual stride. In fact, that absolute lack of predictability is what led to him developing an unorthodox style of his own after losing his first match against the Hot Rod and drove him to hone it further after his success in their rematch. While he had little right to claim the courier had cheated in their fight, Cesar was sure the results would have been much different had he not started it with a literal vehicular assault.

Brian was visibly tense and battle-ready, while Jorge remained relaxed and casual when the bell rung out to start their match. The would-be hero wisely decided to forgo the direct approach this time, instead choosing to circle his opponent while keeping distance, waiting for his chance. Cesar could agree with the idea, having lost the first time by not doing the same, but Jorge had known better than to give people time to maneuver after their second match. As was in his nature, the Hot Rod nonchalantly paced toward Brian, still revealing nothing of what exactly his next move would be, even if his intent was clear.

The slow approach was all he needed to pressure the courier into attacking far earlier than he should have. Rushing in mostly blind, Brian began with a quick series of jabs, playing things on the safe side as much as he could now. Cesar could understand why, a young man of Brian's size would not last long trading blows, instead he aimed to end his fights quickly with surgical strikes. It was true that a drawn-out battle would see him defeated, but rushing to end it now would just hasten that failure.

Brian didn't even have a chance to see the punch that knocked the wind from his body, but it was clear that he felt it. Jorge's moniker was not solely based on his cockeyed fashion sense, his speed was unmatched by all but a few above his age class in Vemana. In less than a flame's flicker, he followed up his attack with a sudden blow to the side of the American's head, landing a fist squarely on his right ear. To Cesar's surprise, Brian was able to block the punch aimed at his windpipe despite being breathless and half-deaf, even if it sent his forearm colliding with it anyway.

The would-be hero barely had the sense to stumble back after such a beating, but the space created didn't last long. The Hot Rod's left leg shot out at record speed for a kick that very well could have decapitated his opponent had he been made of anything other than flesh and bone. Showing his own impressive displays of swiftness, Brian managed to recover and assumed a defensive stance just in time to glance the strike across the length of his left arm, though not without obvious pain. Jorge brought his leg back down like a scythe, reversing the motion in an instant to harvest another victory. His attack was defanged by Brian's unsteady grip by the time it reached his neck and Cesar was in equal spades flattered and offended by what he bore witness to.

It was an exact copy of his unnamed stance from his unnamed style, albeit not without its faults, given the courier's clear lack of experience with it. Putting his rough understanding into play, Brian immediately sent a backhand to Jorge's inner thigh and swiftly heaved his forearm upward once it made contact. Briefly stunned and taken off balance by this attack, the Hot Rod was unable to defend against the last piece of the combo, a gut-punch delivered to make him share his opponent's breathlessness. Before the would-be hero could take any further advantage of the Hot Rod's vulnerable state, the anachronistic goon twisted in the air to bring his other leg careening toward Brian's head in another unbelievable display of agility.

"Like I said" Santana broke Cesar's concentration "A goldmine." The young gangster was forced to agree, even if he kept that to himself. He could not claim it was bad form, as he had done the same mere minutes ago. Despite pride being a factor that Cesar could not deny, he could not bring himself to think less of the American for managing to understand his self-taught fighting style after facing it only once. Even when he had tried to do the same it was more a piece-meal combination of what he had lost against and the many similar styles that he had not. As the two in the ring staggered back to their feet, all of Cesar's focus was glued to the shorter man as they returned to square one and circled each other like prehistoric dogs.

Brian didn't hide his contemplation well, but just what exactly it entailed remained unknown to the gangster in the box seat, to say nothing of the one in the ring. Cesar's victory against Jorge came after a hard night's work of reading his patterns and months beforehand of honing his newly forged skills, something Brian did not have. His instincts were sharp, there was no denying that, but where Brian was a knife, Jorge was a rapier. Without some impeccable planning, the would-be hero had no path to victory, but Cesar could see the poorly concealed edge of a smirk on his face telling him he had found one.

Brian suddenly relaxed, jogging in place but keeping his eyes moving and looking all too sure of himself, even if he couldn't blink both of them at the same time now. The Hot Rod didn't change his pattern by even a step, forcing the courier to put his wasted momentum to use, though it seems to Cesar that he had planned it that way. His path took him to Concita, who had remained motionless but for her breathing on the cold floor of the ring. It was unusual, but not quite uncommon, for fallen combatants to remain in the ring after a bout had concluded, but Santana's intentions of establishing Brian as a force to be reckoned made no room for pause or worry for the other young men and women he had forced into Vemana.

The courier hopped over the unconscious girl and, in a maneuver few in the stands could see, struck his thigh with his fist as he landed. Jorge picked up his pace while keeping it methodical and deliberate as he closed the last few meters of distance. Brian still had not taken a stance as he kept up his slow retreat, mirroring his opponent, but Cesar doubted he was trying to copy yet another style, even if he was clearly inspired by the Hot Rod's strategy.

Meters reduced to feet now, Jorge fought defensively with a leg sweep he had intended to hit the American with the absolute edge of his heel. However, Brian had bounded backward just in time, the kick only managing to scrape along the sole of his shoe and add some awkwardness to his landing. His hand darted into his pants pocket as he traveled through the air and out just as quickly once he had landed. Jorge burst forward, not leaving a visible gap between the sweep and his leaping advance. It was a risky maneuver that relied on his speed and the surprise of the attack to cover up the hole left in his defense. That hole proved far larger than the Hot Rod thought as the would-be hero tossed a blinding spray in his face.

Pain and lack of vision caused Jorge to whiff his punch and topple, his breath was taken from him again before he could right himself. Brian kept a sure grip on his opponent's arm as he followed up with a disabling throat punch. For his finisher, the American held the Hot Rod in a one-armed forward chokehold and looped the other arm around the other man's back, then shot his leg backward and used all his remaining might along with gravity's force to throw Jorge to the ground headfirst. Cesar, and almost certainly Brian, had seen the same throw performed countless times in the Lucha ring, but this was no theatrical play fight and seeing Jorge's body go limp the moment his skull met the floor was the furthest thing from sports entertainment, even for him.

Brian remained on the ground for a time while uncertain cheers spread out around him, breathing deliberately and trying to hide his pain. He kept his hold on Jorge, a wise but unnecessary choice as Cesar knew just how thin that padding of the ring truly was. After a moment's caution, the would-be hero quested a hand for his unmoving opponent's neck, searching for a pulse. His next exhale told Cesar he had found it. Another gesture of honor he had seen too many flashing teeth to believe.

Rising up now, the crowd lost it's doubt and drowned the newest rising start of Vemana in adoration and pesos that had been sextupled thanks to him. The act of opulence disgusted him and he paid no attention to the tidy sum gathering at his feet, casting his gaze to Santana instead. He put considerable effort into hiding his pain, but that kind of guile was far from his forte. Cesar had caught him clutching his forehead as rose from the floor, the kick taking a far larger toll than it seemed from the box seat, but interestingly, it was not the side he was kicked from. He withdrew an item from his pocket, the one he had broken to create the key to his victory, and began to idly fidget with it, attempting to look unimpressed. Why he had carried dog treats with him here, Cesar could not guess, as sand would have been easier and far more effective tool had this been his plan from the beginning.

"Think he's had enough?" Santana rubbed his unnaturally smooth chin as he glanced sideways to Cesar, both of them keeping their heads turned to the ring. The young gangster didn't meet his gaze.  
"Shocked he's not dead already."  
"Not what I asked, boy," Santana said without malice in his tone, but an excess of it dripping from his choice of words.  
Cesar did not dignify that with any real reaction and barely gave it a response. "For now.." **  
**That same spot, a mere speck of yellow on the side of his wisdom tooth revealed itself as he turned and shook his head at Elvis.  
"Now how was that for a first day in the ring, ladies and gentlemen! The hometown hero from a town over two-thousand miles away taking out two of Vemana's best and he's still standing! Will anyone else be able to snuff out this rising star? Well, we'll all see in the coming weeks with more brutal and beautiful battles from Mr. Doomfist Dailor! Let's all give him one last round of applause tonight, lord knows he's earned it!"

Brian didn't hide his outrage and Santana didn't hide his satisfaction at that. He had little ground to argue on and barely with a leg to stand on, he begrudgingly obeyed, grimacing as if doing so agitated his wounds more than the way he'd gained them. His exit was slow and an attempt was made to make it look dignified, but the way he swerved slightly to the left when the exit was straight ahead of him stole much of its grace. No sooner than he left had the clean-up crew arrived to drag the fallen back to Morales' makeshift clinic. Without any mortal wounds, they would also be facing the indignity of being bumped back in the dubious doctor's schedule behind the would-be hero.

"So, not that I can't guess the gist of it from the look on your face, but what do you think of your new motivator?" Santana slimed with phlegm in his throat, thanks to his foul-smelling habit. Slow as the flow of battle was, it still engrossed Cesar, not that he had paid his captain much heed in less intriguing times.  
"I can beat him."  
Santana gave a low chuckle "Not as confident as you were five minutes ago, eh?"  
"It doesn't matter how good he is, if taking him down gets me the money, I'll do it."  
"Even if that means killing him?"

Santana's usual smarm was completely absent from that question and the weight of that stole Cesar's attention even as the roar of his fellow observers signaled the true start of combat. He looked to his Captain, expecting his sudden austerity to fade away with a flash of unnatural white.  
"You can't be serious, not after everything you said about him being a cash cow." Cesar finally said once it became clear that yellow speck would not enter his sight anytime soon.  
"People are bound to get bored if he ends up winning too much and that means less people betting and leaves the ones that still are with a guaranteed payout. Even if he doesn't, the little autist is bound to cause me problems sooner or later, I'm sure enough of that I'll bet everything those suckers lose on him once he dies'll with you."

Cesar sat in silence, unsure if he could even answer. Whether he could match his skill had never been the question, Cesar knew himself well enough to know defeating Brian was not beyond his limits but killing a human being was. He had only been a member of Los Muertos for less than a year, most of which was spent in Vemana with a few rare stints in debt collection, nothing anywhere close to the gravity of murder. Even when he had first joined out of a lack of any other sort opportunity to make it through life, he had feared the inevitable day when this would come, but if Santana kept even a one-one hundredth of his word, he would be able to leave crime behind him before it became his life.

"I take him out and it's all mine, no catch?" Cesar asked, keeping his eye on the empty arena.  
"None that I can think of at the moment," Santana answered from a slit of a smile.  
"And if I don't kill him, just show him his place?"  
"You do half the job, you get none of the pay. Same as any business." Santana's almost plasticine features struggled to move with the size of his grin as he addressed his subordinate. It was no choice at all and the both of them knew it, but the crime lord enjoyed his games.

"How long do I have to prep?" Cesar inquired as coldly as he could manage.  
"He's signed on for fifteen 'quality' matches. Guess who just volunteered to be number fifteen? He's got one down, so let's clock it at a week and a half."  
Cesar was silent for a long while, a mix of roiling anger for Santana's restrictive timing and planning his equally stringent training regimen. Reading his thoughts, his captain issued a mutually beneficial order.

"Don't need to grind that hamster wheel in your head down so much planning for it, I've seen to getting you plenty of training. Who else do you think I'd trust with following up an act this good?"  
Without one more word and a single glance of irritation, Cesar left for the locker room to warm up for whatever Santana thought would be captivating enough to eclipse what they had just seen. The King of Los Muertos of Dorado simply chuckled at that and took another deep hit as he leaned back, almost impatient to see how his prospect would impress him in the coming minutes. **  
**

* * *

I need to stop promising deadlines I can't deliver on. Part 15 eventually, Sneek Peek: /watch?v=FM0qyvsb-SM

Planning on fixing up some older chapters, so don't expect it soon.


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